


Almost Love and Affection

by katarama



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Biting, D/s, F/F, Implied Bondage, Marking, Masturbation, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 14:07:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2775827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It is a real concern for Cora. She doesn't really know anyone going to her school.<br/>She only has one name that really matters. She knows that her roommate is named Lydia Martin. She has done the requisite Facebook stalking, but wasn't able to get much. Lydia Martin from Beacon Hills, California has very high privacy settings."<br/> </p><p>College AU where Cora and Lydia do more fucking and fighting than friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost Love and Affection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theplacewhere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theplacewhere/gifts).



> For the Teen Wolf Femslash Exchange! 
> 
> This is my first fic posted on AO3, so may thanks to my beta, [rjosettes](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rjosettes/pseuds/rjosettes), for their immense help and reassurance.
> 
> The warnings for this fic show that there is, in fact, stalking. However, this does not take place within the main pairing (or within any pairing). 
> 
> Companion mix found [here](https://8tracks.com/katarama/almost-love-and-affection).

 

As Cora Hale unloads the last box of stuff from the car, she is tentatively optimistic. The sun is bright, meaning that hauling her stuff from the car to her dorm is less soggy than the weatherman predicted. The campus is busy, full of parents helping their freshman kids move into the dorms. From the outside, the building she will be living in for the year looks nicer than she expected. She knows she'll have to adjust to the communal bathrooms and the draftiness in the winter, but her building is old and stone and pretty.

Derek gave her his version of a pep talk the night before, when she was packing up her last box of stuff. Cora is sure he meant it to be encouraging, and in a way, it was. It reassured her that if even her cocky brother could make friends in college, then the chances of her spending all four years completely friendless are slim to none.

It is a real concern for Cora. She doesn't really know anyone going to her school. Sure, there are a few people in her graduating class who are going here with her, since it’s not far from her high school. She doesn't know any of them, though, or at least not well enough for her to feel like she's going in with an ally.

She only has one name that really matters. She knows that her roommate is named Lydia Martin. She has done the requisite Facebook stalking, but wasn't able to get much. Lydia Martin from Beacon Hills, California has very high privacy settings.

Cora isn't sure whether that makes her more curious or nervous.

Cora expects to be the first person in her dorm room, but when she turns the handle and walks in, she’s surprised to see that a home décor catalogue has vomited all over the room. Everything looks meticulously planned, from the fancy bedding with sheets with almost certainly high thread counts to the tasteful but probably uncomfortable chair in the corner to the evenly distributed and probably overly expensive framed art hung on the wall.

The entire room is already covered in junk. Whoever moved in that morning clearly thought that her getting in first meant that she should have control over how the room should look for the year. On what Cora assumes is her bed, there are two completely separate, matching sets of bedding neatly laid out. There is an actual dust ruffle. There are _two_ dust ruffles. It’s more dust ruffles than Cora has seen in her entire life.

Cora’s a little bit surprised that the sheets aren't actually put on her bed, since her roommate clearly did everything else already. She probably felt like she was giving Cora a choice, having two sets of sheets and all.

No one is there, so Cora doesn't feel any remorse as she removes all of her new roommate’s junk from her side of the room and dumps it on the floor.

Later on, Cora would say that it was the first big mistake of her college career.

 

* * *

 

Almost all of Cora’s boxes are unpacked, and the room is finally starting to come together. Cora didn't bring very much stuff, since she is only a 20-minute drive from home. She knows that her parents are expecting regular visits, anyway, just like they did with Derek and Laura, to make sure that Cora's adjusting well to college and keeping up with her work. Cora knows that if she needed anything at all, it would be easy to call up anyone in her family and get them to drop it off, or to just pick stuff up when she goes home. She is already planning on saving on quarters and doing her laundry at home. 

She doesn't need much stuff in her room itself, though. She likes her spaces uncluttered and clean.

Cora is tucking the comforter she brought from home under the mattress when she hears the door creak open. Before she finishes straightening up the corner and sees who walked in, a high, nasally voice demands, “What the hell are you doing?”

Cora barely even has time to turn her head before a pale girl with long, curly red hair is marching over in her four-inch heels. “I had the colors perfectly matched and your two bedding options laid out, all you had to do was pick one. It isn't that difficult.” Cora opens her mouth to protest when the girl reaches down, her lips pursed, and picks up the still-folded stack of midnight blue sheets. She shoves them at Cora. “These sheets are expensive. They go on your bed, not that hideous orange thing. It doesn't match the room.”

"Nice to meet you, too,” Cora says, taking the sheets and setting them on top of her bed. Lydia’s heels are so high that Cora has to look up to talk to her face. “I’m Cora, and I don’t like people invading my personal space. As long as you don’t try to put your stuff on my bed, desk, or walls again, we’ll be just fine.”

Lydia purses her lips again as she glances around at the changes that Cora made to her side of the room. Cora starts to wonder if this is going to be a permanent expression on Lydia’s face.

“The point is for it to feel like home, not a prison cell,” Lydia says primly. “Your orange sheets and the blank walls are giving me a headache. If you don’t fix it, I will.”

Cora grabs the sheets back from off her bed and shoves them into Lydia’s hands. “Keep your shit on your own side of the room,” she says, her voice firm.

From the sour expression on Lydia’s face as she gingerly grips the sheets and places them in the bottom drawer of her dresser, Cora senses that this is only a temporary truce, or maybe not even a truce at all.

Cora feels a bit disappointed; it’s the first time that she met the person she is going to be living with for the rest of the year, and they already don’t get along. She worries that a year full of personality clashes is imminent.

She’s been on campus for three hours, and her bubble of optimism has already been popped.

 

* * *

 

Cora has tentative hopes that things will get better with her and her roommate. After all, Lydia is new to all of this as much as Cora is. Surely she has as much reason to want to get along as Cora does. Cora thinks they could get along fine, that maybe they just got off to a bad start. Maybe things are redeemable. 

Although she knows she isn't the friendliest person, Cora has always been able to at least tolerate most people. There are very few people she actively hates, and if she’s given her space, Cora can coexist with just about anyone.

Lydia, it turns out, doesn't understand the concept of giving Cora her own space. She constantly tries to make alterations to Cora’s side of the room. She makes unsolicited comments about the state of Cora’s hair and clothes which Cora thinks are intended to be well-meaning, but just make Cora uncomfortable and grumpy.

Cora suspects that it wouldn't be so bad if classes would start up. There would be something else for Lydia to focus on besides making sure that her room is perfectly arranged so that she isn't ashamed to bring around the group of well-coiffed, wealthy friends that Cora is certain that Lydia has.

When Cora meets Lydia’s best friend from high school, Cora isn't surprised to see that on an average day, she looks like she just walked off a runway, with her pretty sundresses and white teeth and wavy brown hair.

Cora _is_ surprised to discover that she is the most sweet, genuine, down to earth person Cora's ever met. Cora is even more surprised when she discovers that they are both really into going running. When Allison asks for Cora’s number so they can coordinate a gym session together, Lydia looks vaguely disapproving, which is even more motivation for Cora to type her number into Allison’s cell.

There’s still a little bit of hope left for Cora that she and Lydia might end up working things out and getting along fine.  Until then, Cora is relieved to actually have a friend, even if that friend just so happens to have been Lydia’s friend first. It isn't likely that being friends with Allison will endear her to Lydia, but she likes Allison in her own right, and, at this point, that’s more important.

Cora knows she will make more friends, but for the time being, Derek’s suggestion to rush for a sorority (“Built-in friends, and you’ll get a new roommate in the house”) doesn't look as ridiculous as Cora thought.

The “free booze and all the hot girls you could want” part that Derek tacks on reminds Cora why she isn't considering taking any advice from Derek seriously after all.

 

* * *

 

Classes start up. It’s only the first week, but Cora is already falling into a pattern that feels comfortable for her.

She gets up early every morning so that she can go for a quick jog. She doesn't mind early

mornings, and the exercise helps her wake herself up enough that she breezes through the 8:30 class that everyone else sleeps through. She has almost entirely morning classes this semester; on Tuesday and Thursday, she has one class at 1:30, but most days she finishes up at lunch time.

When she goes back to her room, it’s empty for an hour or two, since Lydia has class. Cora tries to get as much out of that time as she can, since it’s the only time she really gets alone in her room. Lydia likes working at her desk, so she's always in the room all evening. Cora thinks it’s a control thing. When Lydia’s at her desk, she can only see her own side of the room, and she doesn't have to deal with any unwanted noises or distractions.

Cora can empathize with that. She likes to be in a place where she can feel focused when she does her work, too, which is why Cora starts spending more and more time at the gym. The tiny basement gym in her dorm building is always empty, since everyone goes to the newer, nicer sports complex on the other side of campus. That makes it perfect for Cora – she can pull out her notes or print out her readings and get some studying done while she’s running on the elliptical. No one is there to bother her, and when she’s exercising, her head feels clear enough that absorbing information is easier. 

She breaks for dinner most nights, and since she doesn't know enough people yet, she tends to grab something quick so she doesn't have to sit at a table alone for long. Sometimes Allison’s roommate Kira joins her; apparently, Lydia is fairly dismissive of Kira, too, and tends to write her out of their dinner plans. It’s nice for Cora, though. Kira is awkward and dorky, and they don’t have many interests in common, but Cora likes her well enough.  She can see her and Allison being really compatible roommates. They always seem to get along well when Cora ends up eating meals with them.

Then it’s to the library for a bit. Cora knows that if she goes to her room, she will have to deal with Lydia, and that will distract her, so she spends time at a table in the corner on the first floor. Around midnight, she heads back to her dorm room and goes to sleep.

It’s Friday night when things veer from the tentative pattern of the rest of the week.

She leaves the library to head back to her room early, because it's a Friday night, and she figures she should get some time off. The first week has been a blur of new classes and new professors and new people and new places, and she knows that her brain could use a break. She plans on calling Laura to talk for a little bit and calling it a night.

She doesn't know whether Lydia will be in the room or not, since it's the start of the weekend. She knows a lot of the freshmen are at some on-campus party, and Cora gets the feeling that that is probably Lydia’s scene. She knows she heard Allison talking about picking out outfits to wear.

The empty, dark room doesn't surprise her. What she doesn't expect is a text from Lydia when she settles onto her bed.

“I’m having an overnight guest, so be out in 20 minutes.  Don’t come back in until I take the signal off the door.”

Cora rereads the text twice, getting unhappier each time. She knows that Lydia probably just met the person, and that this wasn't planned, so she can’t really hold it against her. They haven’t even discussed yet how they're going to handle guests in their room, though, and it’s only the first week of school. They've been there less than seven days, and already Lydia is kicking Cora out of her room to have a guy over.

Cora isn't sure whether to be a little bit envious Lydia found someone worth bringing back to her place so quickly or whether to be annoyed that her plan of relaxing and having the room to herself for the night are ruined.

When Cora starts cramming toiletries into her backpack so she can head out, she realizes that she doesn't actually have anywhere to go. She doesn't know if that occurred to Lydia when she decided to kick her out or not, but it is a fairly significant problem for Cora.

The RAs made sure to emphasize that students aren't supposed to sleep in the common rooms, so that option is out. Cora isn’t going to stick around in the room with Lydia while she is with some guy. Cora may not know Lydia very well yet, but she doesn't doubt that Lydia would either hustle her out of the room or would do what she wants with Cora still there.

The only realistic option is camping out in Allison and Kira’s room, even though their double is much smaller than Cora and Lydia’s. Allison is supposed to be out with Lydia, so Cora fires off a text to Kira, hoping that, for once, she actually has her phone charged and near her. She messages her on Facebook, too, just to be on the safe side.

To her immense relief, she gets a text from Kira five minutes later saying that it's fine for her to stay with them, and that they have a sleeping bag she can borrow, as long as Cora doesn't mind bringing her own pillow. After letting Kira know exactly how much of a lifesaver she is, Cora zips up her backpack, grabs her pillow from the bed, and heads out.

She doesn't feel even a little bit guilty when she makes sure to lock the door on her way out. Lydia inconvenienced her by kicking her out of her room with so little warning. It’s only fair to inconvenience Lydia a little bit. Lydia and her boy can keep it in their pants long enough to unlock a door.

She must look as vindictive as she feels, because the brown-haired guy walking down the hall with a camera gives her a strange look.

 

* * *

 

Cora doesn't actually mind mornings. 

She's never been overly enthusiastic about them, mostly because there is very little that Cora is overly enthusiastic about. Still, she doesn't mind setting her alarm for 6 AM to get a good run in before her first class. She is a light sleeper, so she always wakes up to her alarm right away and gets up to turn it off so she doesn't wake up Lydia.

Lydia may be perfectly put together during the day, but she gets bedhead and is crabby in the mornings like everyone else. Lydia’s classes start later than Cora’s, most days, but Cora sees the way she has to drag herself out of bed. Cora has gotten used to savoring that moment when Lydia realizes that Cora is bright and alert, and that she hates Cora a lot. 

Cora is always reassured to know that Lydia is human, after all. From the way the loudmouthed freshman living on the floor above them talks, Lydia hung the moon. Cora knows that Lydia’s attractive, but she can’t quite get past the way she looks at everyone but Allison like the room would be improved with them not in it. It’s a look Cora is getting sick of already. It’s one of the many things about Lydia that Cora is getting sick of, and that make her question her ability to tolerate a whole year of rooming with Lydia.

The balance shifts, though, in the third week of school. Cora is still tired from a late night of studying for a midterm, and when her alarm goes off, she blearily walks over and presses the screen to make it stop. She grabs her towel and shuffles down the hall to shower and brush her teeth.

It isn't until she opens her door and hears a loud and persistent beeping noise that she realizes she probably should have looked at what she was pressing. Lydia is sitting up in bed, her hair a mess of curls and one of the straps of her flimsy (and probably unreasonably expensive) nighty sliding down her shoulder. Lydia does not seem to care. Her eyes are laser-focused on Cora standing in the doorway, burning holes into Cora’s skull.

“Turn your alarm off.”

Cora’s instincts to apologize and turn it off are overruled by the fact that it is early in the morning and Lydia looks furious. Cora actually feels a little bit pleased. Lydia has been difficult for days, now, and Cora thinks it's fair game to cause Lydia a little bit of grief. “I’ll get it in a second,” Cora says, mostly just because she doesn't want Lydia touching her phone. She isn't sure Lydia wouldn't destroy the screen with her perfectly manicured nails for making her get out of her bed.

“Get it now,” Lydia orders, her voice even rougher with sleep. Cora just rolls her eyes. If Lydia cared that much, she would’ve turned it off before Cora came back to the room in the first place.

Still, Cora knows that Lydia has another hour before she’d usually get up, so she takes pity on her and turns the alarm off. Lydia doesn’t say anything; she just lies back down, sending Cora another lingering dirty look before closing her eyes to sleep.

Cora decides that this is a learning experience. She now has something that she knows gets under Lydia Martin’s skin. She doesn’t have many things like that (or if she does, Lydia has done a good job of keeping her unaware of it), so she is going to take full advantage.

The next time Lydia tries to rearrange Cora’s part of the room while she’s in class and then makes pointed, snide remarks about how Cora’s closet is beyond even her help, (“It’s only workout clothes and jeans”) she decides that maybe Lydia shouldn’t get a monopoly on annoying habits. Lydia criticizes Cora for being a humanities student and perpetuating the gender stereotype about women and science, and Cora shuts her up by informing her that she's a women and gender studies major (and considering a minor in neuroscience, though she doesn’t say that out loud).

Lydia talks like she understands everything and is waiting for Cora to catch up with her, but Cora doesn’t think that Lydia is as wise and all-knowing as she seems to think she is. There is no doubt in Cora’s mind that Lydia is smart, maybe even scary smart, academically. She’s glimpsed enough of Lydia’s chemistry homework to know it’s way beyond the basic intro level course, but that Lydia is doing well at it, anyway. No matter how matter-of-fact and sure Lydia sounds when she opens her mouth, though, Cora is pretty sure that Lydia is very good at advanced, theoretical math and science and not very good at sustaining long-term friendships with actual human beings.

Cora isn’t really one to talk, there. Maybe it’s just that she and Lydia are abrasive and straightforward people in their own right, and they were set to clash from the start. They both seem to have a clear idea of what they want, and neither of them is afraid to work to get it. As much as Cora knows that Lydia likes everything to appear effortless, Lydia is in office hours talking to professors more than half her class put together, and she studies just as much as Cora does. Cora understands some of Lydia’s pushiness and directness, and, in someone else, Cora could probably even admire it.

The blend of certainty and pushiness in the face of being wrong is what Cora has decided defines Lydia, and it's what grates on Cora’s nerves most.

So, naturally, Cora is unrepentant the next time she lets her alarm run for a full six minutes before shutting it off.

 

* * *

 

Things build up from there, of course, and before long, the two of them are going out of their way to annoy each other. Most of the time, they only do little things that are aggravating, but not damaging enough for either of them to do anything beyond making pointed comments and complaining to Allison. 

There is one exception, for Cora, and that is getting evicted from her own room with what is beginning to look like alarming frequency. Cora doesn't hold Lydia having an apparently very high libido against her. Cora thinks it’s great that she’s getting lots of sex, and secretly hopes that it might calm her high-strung ass down enough that Cora can actually deal with her without wanting to strangle someone.

Cora would be perfectly fine with Lydia getting laid if being sexiled only happened every once in a while. The fourth time that Lydia texts Cora to be out of her dorm room with almost no notice and no apology, only two and a half weeks into the school year, Cora starts to lose her patience.

It’s one thing having her shit moved around. It’s another having a corner of Kira’s closet reserved to keep a bag of her stuff because she isn’t sure when she is going to get a text saying she's kicked out, or when she will come home to her dorm room to find a rubber band wrapped around the handle of the door. It’s even starting to cut into Cora’s sleep; she doesn’t sleep nearly as well in unfamiliar locations, and she isn’t quite familiar enough with the floor of Kira and Allison’s dorm room yet that it feels comfortable and like home for her. She has to go out of her way to grab her books before class in the morning, cutting into the time she usually saves for other things.

She’s sure that, for Lydia, inconveniencing her is as much the point as being with guys is. After all, Cora is pretty certain that Lydia's perfectly capable of being with guys in the guys’ rooms, or in other locations that are not their dorm room when Cora wants to be sleeping.

Part of it has to be the satisfaction that Lydia gets from knowing Cora gets upset about it. Cora is lucky that Allison and Kira don’t mind impromptu sleepovers, but she knows she can’t deal with a whole year of getting kicked out with no notice. She’s tried talking to Lydia about it, asking her to give notice or to warn her further ahead of time, but Lydia doesn't seem to care.

If Cora thought it would do any good, she would talk to her RA about it, but she’s always believed in handling interpersonal problems by herself, and she’s heard how difficult it is to get a room change, anyway.

There isn’t really anything that Cora can do but get progressively more annoyed with Lydia’s smug face the morning after Cora has spent the night on Allison’s floor.

 

* * *

 

For the most part, Cora likes the classes that she’s taking. Her schedule is filled with introductory-level classes and general education requirements, but Cora doesn’t mind very much. She gets the feeling that when her first two years are done, she'll be ready to have a much more focused class schedule, but having five classes about wildly different topics is a much easier transition from high school than it would be if she jumped right into studying only one thing.

Cora’s Spanish teacher is a scary old lady who at least tends to grade fairly. Cora is pretty sure that her seemingly sweet English professor is actually so hyper competent and together that she puts even Lydia to shame. She loves everything about her intro to women and gender studies class already.

She should probably have taken the psychology class over the economics class that she is actually registered for. Although she can tell there are some people in her class that are really into it, she doesn’t quite get the appeal. Laura had gone on about how important it was to leave college having taken at least one economics class, but to Cora, it seems like a lot of math taught in the driest way possible. At least their professor keeps things entertaining. Cora can never predict what is going to come out of Finstock’s mouth, and it's the only thing keeping her awake and focused on what he’s saying about economics.

The only class that she already really dislikes is philosophy. Professor Deaton’s credentials are impressive, but Cora’s lack of natural ability for the very esoteric and abstract nature of philosophy combined with her dislike of Deaton’s teaching style means that she can already tell this semester is going to be rough. The class moves very slowly because the professor is very hands-off and enigmatic, so the louder people in the class who want to debate instead of learn tend to get what they want. Deaton doesn't seem to believe in weighing in with his own opinion unless someone is very, very obviously off-track, and his instructions for the class are vague and unhelpful. Even though they have a small paper due soon, she still has no idea what he expects or how he will be grading it.

It’s how she makes her first close friend of her own.

Cora always sits in the second to last row in the classroom, because she doesn’t care enough about this class to march right up to the front. She's on an edge, so there’s only one desk next to her, which a tall boy with broad shoulders and a serious face always takes. She watches him take detailed notes, and from the expression on his face not matching her own blatant confusion, she’s pretty sure he actually understands what’s going on in the class.

She hadn’t heard him talk until the morning a week and a half before the paper is due, when Deaton finally announces what the requirements are for the paper. It turns out that, for the first paper, enough people requested it being a partner paper that Deaton is going to mandate working with a partner.

Cora hates group projects and partner papers. Back in her tiny little high school, she had built-in people that she could work with, but here in college, she feels like she barely knows anyone. She zones out through most of class, and when she packs up her bag at the end, she’s still trying to figure out what exactly she’s going to do. She doesn’t even notice that the boy sitting next to her has moved from his desk until she drops her notebook and he reaches down to grab it for her.

Cora watches the boy glance down at the notes she took, and she flushes red. They aren’t exactly the most detailed. The page her notebook is open to is a mess of doodles and question marks, with a few stray notes about Socrates and, “Partner????” written in large letters at the bottom.

“You aren’t very good at this, are you?” he asks her. Cora would be mortified, but the way he said it didn’t seem accusatory or proud, just matter-of-fact.

“Not really,” Cora admits. “I tend to do better with things that are a little bit more concrete.”

The boy holds out her notebook to her, and Cora takes it, flipping it shut immediately, even though he already saw her sad attempt at notes. Cora expects him to move on, but instead, he says, “I need a partner, too.”

“We just agreed I was bad at this,” Cora says, confused.

“I’m good at philosophy,” the boy says, “I’m bad at putting it into writing.”

“I'm good at writing and terrible at philosophy. We should be partners, after all.”

The boy smiles at her, and it’s very small and reserved, but it makes Cora hopeful. “I’m Boyd.”

Cora introduces herself, and they exchange numbers so they can meet to work on the paper. They talk very briefly, and Cora walks away excited. Boyd may not be particularly verbose, but Cora has a good feeling about him and about their prospects for this paper.

They meet to talk about the paper over dinner, and it starts a weekly tradition of Cora complaining to Boyd about her roommate and Deaton over food and Boyd listening and nodding along. Sometimes, Boyd shares things, too, but he’s just as happy to let Cora talk.

As much as Cora wants to hate Deaton, she decides that he is good for something, at least. Because of his hellish partner project, she's developed a very quiet and understated but strong friendship, and she has learned enough from Boyd that she feels like she might actually understand what is going on.

Most importantly, they get an A- on the paper.

 

* * *

 

When Cora and Boyd meet to hang out, it’s typically over dinner in a dining hall, because Boyd works a lot and they both have class during the day.

Boyd is off work this Friday, though, and he and Cora have agreed to hang out and watch a movie in Cora’s room. Lydia usually doesn’t come back home until late, so Cora knows they should have time to actually get through a whole movie.

She and Boyd are friends, but they’ve just barely broached the zone of comfortable physical contact (they hugged, once, when Cora was visibly stressed out), meaning that sitting on Cora’s twin size bed together leads to a bit more touching than Cora anticipated. She isn’t typically the most affectionate person, so it feels a bit strange and intimate being so physically close to Boyd. She’s fine with it, though; it reminds her a little bit of snuggling up to her brother to watch a movie when she was little.

Cora is definitely surprised when halfway through the movie, Lydia opens the door and waltzes in, all dressed up in her going out clothes. Cora makes a remark about how there’s no guy tonight, and Lydia smirks at her.

“He’s just down the hall. I told him I would be grabbing something and coming back. He can wait. Besides, it looks like you have yourself a boy in here, anyway.”

Boyd fixes Lydia with an unimpressed look, and it makes Cora certain that she has good taste in friends, after all.

“Grab whatever it is you need and get going so my _friend_ and I can go back to watching our movie, then,” Cora says. She could elaborate for Lydia about Boyd, she knows, but that will just get her teased later, so she just watches as Lydia moves confidently over to her desk. She reaches into the bottom drawer and pulls out a bright pink, thin, curved vibe and a condom. From the gleam in her eyes, Cora gets the feeling that the toy isn’t going to be used on Lydia.

Lydia is out the door, and Cora restarts the movie. At the end of the night, Boyd tells her that she was right about her roommate being a dick, after all.

 

* * *

 

One thing that Cora did not anticipate being an issue when rooming with another person is the fact that, as it turns out, rooming with someone involves a fair amount of being naked or mostly naked. 

When she shared a room with Laura back home, it wasn’t something that really came up. They would change in front of each other all the time, and it wasn’t weird. In fact, she was used to changing around other people, in general, after years of using the locker rooms in gyms.

What she wasn’t used to, though, was Lydia Martin.

Lydia would come into the room and take her plush, fluffy bathrobe off at the door. She would hang it up in the closet and then walk over, completely naked and dripping wet, to the opposite end of the room, where she would put a bra and panties on, and then walk back to her closet to pick out an outfit to wear.

The first time Cora gets an eyeful, it isn’t intentional. She's doing work, and the door opens. She looks up and all she can see is pale, very naked skin, and she looks back down at her work immediately, because she doesn’t want to be creepy. It’s one thing for Lydia to have people looking at her when she has her clothes off during sex, but it’s another for Cora to ogle her when she's getting changed. Cora feels distinctly uncomfortable with that; Lydia is naked to change, not because she wants Cora to look.

The next time Lydia showers when Cora is home, she is very careful to look away when Lydia re-enters the room.

Lydia throws a kink in that plan, though, when her path cuts practically right in front of Cora. Cora catches a glimpse of neatly-trimmed orange hair and soft thighs before Lydia’s walked past her. Cora is struck dumb, and when Lydia cycles back around to go to the closet, she walks close enough that Cora sees her butt in her deep blue underwear, Cora decides that maybe she should work at her desk, instead of her bed.

It isn’t until she sees the smirk sneaking onto Lydia’s face that it occurs to her that it could have been intentional. It makes Cora wonder what Lydia was hoping to achieve, making Cora uncomfortable or envious or turned on or what.

All she knows is that it’s a series of images that she isn't going to get out of her head any time soon.

 

* * *

 

“It’s like everything she does is designed to annoy me,” Cora complains, backing up her computer slightly so the webcam shows more of her bright orange sheets and blank white walls. “Like, this isn’t that bad, right? It’s an orange comforter and undecorated walls. She keeps acting like it’s the end of the world that my part of the room isn’t covered in her shit.”

“It does look a little… utilitarian,” Caitlin says, not unkindly. “I know you’re very protective of your personal space, and she shouldn’t be in it, but you both are blowing this a bit out of proportion.”

“No, I’m not,” Cora insists. “I don’t need some fancy rug on my floor or framed paint blots on my walls. It’s not that hard to not touch what doesn’t belong to you. I shared a room with Laura for half of my life, and neither of us had any problems with it at all. No one wandered around naked, and we followed the most basic rule. I don’t touch your shit, you don’t touch mine. Lydia doesn’t seem to understand that rule, and if she reorganizes my textbooks on the bookshelf one more time, I am going to scream. I have things the way I want them. I need my walls to be clean and empty, so I can actually study when I’m able to come in my room, which is only half the time, anyway, because she’s always bringing boys in here.”

“That hasn’t slowed down since the work picked up?” Caitlin asks curiously.

“It’s still once or twice per week, so far. It’s like I only live in my own room part-time, though, I’m kicked out so much. Derek dropped off a second pillow for me, so I could keep one in Allison and Kira’s room.” Cora shifts the computer to show Lydia’s bed, which is meticulously made and has two fluffy, ridiculous ornamental pillows on it. “I could've stolen one from Lydia, but that would have been going a bit far, I think, since I’ve lectured her so much about not touching my stuff. Besides, she would throw a fit about only having _one_ ornamental pillow not being symmetrical enough, or something.”

“It sounds like she’s gotten under your skin.” Cora hates the knowing look that Caitlin is shooting her, because, for once, Caitlin could not be more wrong.

“She’s everything that drives me crazy,” Cora tells her. “She’s petty and pushy and she acts like the world revolves around her and she’s just waiting for me to fall in line. She’s inconsiderate and hung up on appearances and I have to live with her.”

Caitlin is making the knowing look again. “Sexiling you without notice is unfair. But a lot of the rest of that just sounds like you being sore because she’s strong-willed and stubborn, too.”

Cora’s face heats up, and she’s about to defend herself when Lydia practically glides into the room. Cora’s computer is still pointed at Lydia’s bed, so when Lydia walks over to grab something from under it, Caitlin gets a good look at her. Her expression rapidly changes from excitement to something distinctly affronted.

“Cora, you didn’t tell me she was _hot_.”

Cora doesn’t have her headphones plugged in, and Caitlin’s words carry across the room. As Lydia turns around to glance at the computer, Cora is mortified. She rushes to turn the webcam back on herself, ignoring Lydia’s smug look as best she can.

It’s not easy.

“If only the personality matched,” Cora responds, persistently refusing to glance at Lydia’s face. “Besides, I know for a fact that Lydia likes boys a lot, so don’t get your hopes up.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Caitlin reminds her patiently, “and my hopes aren’t up, I’m not the one living in the bed next to her.”

Cora knows that she’s right, but she doesn’t want to keep talking about this in front of Lydia. Things will be awkward enough, as it is, and this is straying too close to reminding Cora of images she’s blocking out. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

From the expression on Caitlin’s face, this is not going to be the end of it, but Cora figures she can deal with the fallout when Lydia's not in the room.

Caitlin, apparently, is not the only one she’s expected to answer to. 

The next day, Allison and Cora meet up in the dorm gym to study and work out. Cora has a quiz for Economics that she should’ve started studying for days ago but didn’t, and Allison has some sort of oral quiz for French that she needs to review for. Cora doesn’t understand any of what she’s saying, but the words sound pretty coming out of her mouth.

They’re finishing up 30 minutes on the machine when Allison pipes up, trying so hard to seem casual that Cora is immediately suspicious.

“I was talking to Scott yesterday about what friends we kept in touch with from high school. We were noticing that most of our friends we met here during orientation. He hangs out with his best friend Stiles all of the time, since they’ve known each other since they were little, and Stiles lives up a floor from us, anyway, so it’s easy. I have Lydia, of course. Neither of us has been very good about keeping up with anyone else, though.”

Cora knows where this is going already, so she spares Allison the awkwardness of trying to fish her way to what she actually wants to talk about. “Lydia told you about my conversation with Caitlin, didn’t she?”

Allison has the decency to look a bit sheepish. “I didn’t know the name. All Lydia told me was that she thought Lydia was hot, that she was pretty, and that you seemed comfortable with her.”

She could delay this longer, but Cora figures that honesty is probably the best policy here. “She is pretty, and I am comfortable with her. We dated for two years in high school.”

It clearly wasn’t the answer that Allison was expecting, and Cora isn’t certain whether it’s because Lydia didn’t assume what she should have or because Lydia didn’t share that information with Allison. Cora is more inclined to believe the second. Lydia isn’t stupid.

“You like girls?” Allison asks, and, to Cora’s relief, her tone is curious instead of accusatory or judgmental. Cora wouldn’t expect either from Allison, who is so sweet and genuinely good that Cora sometimes expects people to start bursting into spontaneous song and dance around her. It’s still reassuring, though, to know that she is right.

“Yeah. Caitlin was my first girlfriend, and the first time I was really certain that it was just girls, for me. I’d been thinking about it for a long time before that, though. I got a lot of pep talks from my sister Laura about it being okay to like whoever I wanted, as long as I wasn’t a dick about it like Derek used to be.”

Allison laughs, her entire face lighting up with it. “Was he really that bad?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Cora says brightly. “You should’ve seen him with his first girlfriend, Paige. He was a cocky high school basketball star who thought that made him the coolest. Hearing about it from Paige later, I would’ve clocked him, if I were her. It didn’t help that he was taking advice from Uncle Peter. Everyone knows he gives the worst advice.”

“So your sister’s advice was not to be like Derek?”

Cora grins. “It turned out to be pretty good advice. Things with Caitlin were good. She was sweet and funny and a bit of a sap. The sex was good.”

Allison looks tentative when she asks, “What happened?”

“Distance,” Cora says. “I’m at school here, and she’s in Boston. We went ahead and broke up at the very end of the school year, after prom. We’re still really close friends, though, and we Skype whenever we get the chance. We just couldn’t do a long-distance romantic relationship.”

“I was really glad that Scott and I were looking at the same places,” Allison says gently. “I don’t know that I could do a long-distance relationship, either. As it is, Scott and I don’t see each other nearly as much as we want to, since we both have class, and then I have archery and gymnastics, and he has his job and Quidditch with Stiles.”

“Kira told me you don’t even kick her out very often,” Cora says noncommittally.

Allison blushes. “We always feel bad about it. I never want to kick Kira out, and Scott never wants to kick Boyd out.”

“Wait, Scott and Boyd are roommates?” Cora asks, surprised and completely derailed. She knows that Boyd likes his roommate, that he’s always had good things to say, but he’d never mentioned a name before.

The conversation turns to how Cora managed to not realize that Scott and Boyd are roommates, and away from Cora being a lesbian. Cora doesn’t really mind either way. Allison is the first person that she’s told at college, and it's actually nice now that Allison knows. It isn’t something that Cora was actively hiding. She just isn’t used to having to tell people, since coming out in high school for her was synonymous with her starting to date Caitlin. She didn’t really have to tell many people, and she doesn’t know how to go about it. Now that she’s told Allison, everything feels more honest, though, and she likes the feeling.

Cora would worry that telling Allison would mean that everything will get back to Lydia, but she honestly thinks Lydia probably knows, anyway, so it’s just one more place where everything’s out in the open. Although it was an awkward way for Lydia to find out, Cora is a little bit relieved that she knows, and even more relieved that, for all of Lydia’s faults, she clearly is respecting Cora’s privacy enough that she didn’t tell Allison everything.

Cora has come to have very low expectations for Lydia’s capacity for kindness and tact, and she wonders if maybe she’s being unfair, and she should possibly consider reevaluating the way she sees her roommate.

Ultimately, she decides that Lydia hasn’t done anything awesome, she just hasn’t done anything extremely dickish, so Cora feels justified in not changing a thing.

 

* * *

 

Midterm season arrives, and, as stressed as she is, Cora actually feels like she has a handle on things. Surrounded by a whole college of people who are stress eating and skipping showers to fit in more time for work, Cora can’t completely evade the aura of panic on campus. She's doing her best, though, not to let it get to her, and she thinks she’s doing a fairly respectable job. She rereads her notes for her classes to make carefully color coded cheat sheets. Having everything laid out in one place always helps her understand how things fit together and calms her down.

Kira has bitten her nails down to stubs, and Allison’s started spending more time on the archery range.

Cora recently decided that Allison’s ability to be sunshine and friendship and cotton candy and also Lydia Martin’s best friend is directly connected to her ability as an archer. Cora saw her on the range for the first time a week ago, and after watching how many times Allison hit the dead center of the target, her face serious and cold with focus, Cora understands better. Allison has ways of getting her aggression out, ones that involve shooting things with very pointy sticks.

Boyd is as steady as he always is. Boyd is virtually unflappable, even when faced with Deaton’s shit, and it’s one of Cora’s favorite things about him. When she’s stressed out, he is the best person to be around, because he doesn’t crack under pressure, he refuses to let her work herself up over things, and he gives the best hugs.

Lydia seems equally untouched by the stress of midterm season, which Cora attributes to the fact that she’s probably had the textbook completely memorized since August, anyway. Lydia doesn't seem like the type of person who would procrastinate studying and let midterms catch her by surprise. Lydia doesn’t seem like the type of person who would let anything catch her surprise, but especially not tests.

Cora has four midterms and a paper. The paper is for Deaton, and after rereading the same passage of Aristotle until she could practically recite it from memory, spending far too much time in Deaton’s office hours, and complaining to Boyd, Cora has something that she is pretty sure makes sense. The rest of her midterms are spread out over a week and a half, which makes it hard to study for them one at a time.

The economics midterm is last, meaning that Thursday night, Cora is up late drinking coffee and trying to cram as many graphs and equations into her head as she can, hoping some of it will stick.

It’s worth it. Cora walks into the exam, scribbles for 90 minutes, and walks out feeling pretty good about herself. She survived exam week, and there isn’t a single exam that she feels like she failed. She has a long weekend ahead of her, and Kira promised that they would get off-campus and do something fun. Because Cora is a local and Kira isn’t, she knows she is probably going to have to end up picking what they actually do, but Cora doesn’t mind that so much. She's just excited to be getting away from dorm food and textbooks.

Her excellent mood dies when she reaches the door of her dorm room and finds a rubber band on the door.

Between the huge amounts of stress that Cora has had building up inside her for the last two weeks and the month and a half worth of resentment she has had building up towards Lydia, she can’t take this in stride. Knowing Lydia is inside her room having sex and keeping Cora from her beloved bed and from a well-deserved nap makes something inside Cora snap, and instead of hauling her shit to Kira and Allison’s, Cora reaches out her hand and knocks firmly on the door three times.

After waiting thirty seconds or so, Cora starts knocking on her door again, and this time, she doesn’t stop. She is frustrated and crabby and sleep-deprived, and she doesn’t even care about the fact that both Lydia and whatever boy she has in there are probably both naked and in the middle of having sex.

In fact, that would make it even better. Maybe the moron won’t be able to get it up while Cora is banging on Lydia’s door. Either way, Cora isn’t going to stop banging until Lydia gets her ass out of her overly plush, ridiculously decorated bed and comes to let her roommate in.

It takes about three minutes of knocking before Lydia cracks open the door and sticks her head out. Cora is pretty certain she is about to be a bug under Lydia’s foot.

“What?” Lydia demands, not even sparing the energy to be cutesy.

Through the crack in the door, she can see the naked boy on Lydia’s bed. He isn’t even trying to cover up, and when Cora gets an eyeful, he waggles his eyebrows at her. She’d rather not look at him, so she averts her eyes.

Looking down is even more of a mistake. Cora’s mouth goes dry when she sees the sliver of Lydia’s naked skin peeking out, but she doesn’t let herself get distracted. She didn’t have a plan for what would happen when Lydia actually opened the door, though, and she’s decided that staring at the very tan, very muscled man on Lydia’s bed is smarter than ogling Lydia’s hip, so what ends up coming out of her mouth is, “You don’t have very good taste in guys, do you?”

Lydia seems totally unamused and primed to flatten Cora, but now that Cora has opened her mouth, she plunges onwards. “Really, I don’t care. I don’t care who he is, as long as you kick him out, right now. I’m tired of being locked out of my room whenever you want to have sex.”

“Would you rather be in it?" Lydia asks flippantly, tracing Cora’s body with her eyes. Cora knows it’s probably meant to be a joke, but she feels pinned under the weight of it. It makes her uncomfortable how close it is to the truth, and Lydia’s piercing, assessing gaze probably picks up on it.

Thankfully, Cora is spared having to scramble for an answer when the guy pipes up in a low, deep voice, "I'd like to see that!"

With the tension shattered and Cora no longer on the spot, she feels herself relaxing. “See,” Cora says to Lydia, tilting her head towards the boy, “terrible taste in guys.”

Lydia closes the door, and Cora isn’t entirely sure what to do. The anger and frustration she had built up for Lydia are now dispelled, and she doesn’t want to waste more time knocking. She's about to give up and head over to Allison’s when the boy walks out of the room, fully dressed. “Lydia wants you,” he says suggestively, holding the door open for Cora.

The room smells strongly enough of sex that Cora is pretty sure it’s already halfway to giving her a headache. It's still warm enough that she doesn’t hesitate to crack their window.

Once she’s seated on her bed, Cora finally talks. “You can’t keep kicking me out of my own room without telling me.”

“You never answered my question,” Lydia responds.

Cora thought that she was going to get away with not answering, but the more Lydia pushes, the more Cora starts to wonder if Lydia is actually serious about this. “Would it keep them out of my room if it were me in there with you?”

“Not always.”

“But it would keep them out more of the time?” Cora asks.

“It would keep them out when we’re busy, since you don’t like boys,” Lydia tells her. Cora doesn’t question how she knows. “You wouldn’t appreciate a threesome with a boy.”

“I meant…”

“Yes,” Lydia says finally. “If we're having sex, I won’t be forced to go looking elsewhere.”

Hearing it out loud like that is a bit jarring for Cora. Neither of them had actually said what they would be doing; they’d been skirting around it. But now, it’s out in the open, and Cora wonders if she's been that transparent all along, if Lydia has been watching her and noticing that even Cora isn’t immune to how attractive Lydia is.

Cora takes a second to think it over seriously. There are so many ways this can go wrong; she would be having sex with Lydia, who Cora doesn’t trust further than she can throw her. Considering how much boob Lydia has and how little height difference there is, that is definitely not very far. Cora hasn’t had sex since the summer, though, and there’s no denying that Lydia Martin is physically attractive.

Sleeping with her roommate would mean getting kicked out less and getting laid more, which Cora considers a win. Cora also considers the fact that she will never have to do a walk of shame a positive.

Lydia is staring at her like she already knows the answer Cora is going to give, and Cora almost wants to say no just to see how Lydia’s smug face changes, but the fact of the matter is that Lydia is right.

Cora wants to have sex with Lydia, and that is something that she can have. It would be stupid for her to turn down the opportunity. Stiles would kill to be in her shoes.

“Okay,” she finally says. “We’ll do this.”

Lydia looks pleased, but not very surprised. “Good. You’ve gotten what you wanted, so you can avoid interrupting me again.”

It’s almost enough to remind Cora how obnoxious and grating Lydia is, but encouraged by the promise of sex, Cora thinks she can probably deal with it for now.

 

* * *

 

 

She is wrong. 

Lydia invests in earplugs and sets her alarm for 3 AM.

Cora hates everything.

 

* * *

 

It’s 9 PM and Lydia’s out. Cora has no idea when she left, or even how long she’ll be gone. Cora doesn’t particularly care, though. It’s a Friday night, and after an extended study session in the gym, she thinks she deserves some rest and relaxation. As far as she’s concerned, she has all the time in the world, and she plans to take advantage of it. 

Cora takes her time stripping her clothes off, even though she isn’t wearing much in the first place. She peels off her tank top and her sports bra, both still damp from cooling sweat, and her running shorts and cotton panties. 

Her bright orange comforter feels soft and gentle against her skin as she spreads herself out on top of it. She takes a second to just let her weight sink into the bed, enjoying the feeling of being on something solid after working her body so hard. She could honestly fall asleep, just like that, if it weren’t for all of the chemicals rushing around in her body, making her feel pent-up and restless.

That's a good thing. Cora doesn’t want to use her precious alone time just for sleeping.

She pulls her arm up off the bed to lay it on her chest, brushing along her stomach in smooth, light circles. She has goosebumps covering her skin, both from the cool air against her body and from the lightness of her touch.

After spending some time just feeling her skin, tensing her muscles to feel where her body is sore and where it feels good, where the workout has relaxed her, she finally moves onto what she's been waiting for. Her body has been worked up and stretched to its limits, and she thinks that she should be able to treat it right.

When Cora was with Caitlin, she learned that starting off with slow contact and easing up to more pressure always works her up faster than she expects. Even if it isn’t intended to be sexual, Cora has sensitive skin, and having time spent on her body always makes her wet before she even gets her fingers on her clit.

She doesn’t want to rush things, though, while she has the time. So she starts out aimlessly, just enjoying the feel of the pads of her fingers brushing against her soft skin.

Once she can feel the arousal starting to build up, she settles into something more directed. She moves her hands up to her breasts, cupping them in her hands first and squeezing. She takes her time working her way to the nipple, because she knows that as soon as she starts squeezing and tugging there, she’s going to want to come quickly.

Cora knows she isn’t limited to just coming one time, but there’s something satisfying to her about drawing things out, to getting her body so that it _needs_ more. It’s something she only ever really does on her own, making herself desperate to be touched and to come so that when she gets what she wants, everything feels overwhelmingly good.

Patience has never been Cora’s strong suit, but discipline definitely is. She makes herself wait until she can feel the slick on her thighs before she finally lets a hand drift down. Everything is too slippery at first, and it takes her a second to find the right angle and the right spot to get enough friction on her clit.

She closes her eyes and lets her mind wander as she rubs in smooth, slow strokes. It isn’t nearly enough for her to get off on; for as sensitive as her skin is, her clit needs a firm hand.

Today, when she finds a thought to settle on that is enough to build from, it just so happens that that firm hand is Lydia’s.

She can picture Lydia over her, an inch or so shorter, but not feeling smaller at all. Lydia always feels that way to Cora, whether she’s wearing her six-inch heels or not. She feels like she takes up more space than most people, like she demands enough attention and obedience that her actual height is irrelevant compared to the amount of power she wields.

In day to day life, Cora works so hard to fight that, to make sure Lydia knows that not everyone is going to put up with her bullshit. Right now, though, it feels so much easier to let go and give in to the image she’s created in her head. Cora feels herself getting slicker thinking about Lydia’s finger being the one on her clit, so that Cora isn’t deciding how fast to go, it’s Lydia. She can imagine how much Lydia would like that, being in control and setting the pace and making the decisions. Cora keeps her finger slow on her clit as she draws up images of Lydia’s body and breasts over her and slow, teasing movements that fill Cora with the urge to buck up into her own fingers and take what she wants.

She doesn’t, though, because in her head, Lydia is pinning her with her sharp green eyes and a surprisingly firm grip on her hips, her dark red nails digging into Cora’s side. She can almost feel the persistent pricks of pain in the skin, everything seems so vivid. Cora just floats along that image, surprised by how much it arouses her. She doesn’t know where any of this is coming from; sex with Caitlin was always sweeter and softer, and the roughness and lack of control that her head is spooling out is not her typical fantasizing.

Whether it's normal or not, her body is responding too much for her to want to waste her thoughts questioning it. She’s covered in a thin sheen of sweat that Lydia’s hair is sticking to. Cora lets herself wind closer as Lydia gradually speeds up her finger, and finally, Cora comes so hard she can’t feel her legs.

In the afterglow, Cora almost dozes off, her body is so relaxed. Once she’s come down, though, she forces herself out of bed to get her washcloth and clean herself off. It isn’t until she’s back in bed and about to pass out when it occurs to her that she just got off thinking about Lydia. She pushes it into the corner of her head.

She can deal with that tomorrow.

Or the next day.

Maybe the day after that?

She doesn’t deal with it.

 

* * *

 

Cora decides to talk to Boyd about it first. 

She could go to Allison, and Allison would listen and be sympathetic and offer advice. With how close Allison and Lydia are, though, Cora would feel weird doing that. She trusts Allison to keep a secret, for the most part, but Cora would much rather tell someone who is just her friend and not Lydia’s, too.

Plus, Allison has always seemed a bit too eager to shove Cora and Lydia together. She might treat this like a good thing.

So Cora walks over to see Boyd.

When she knocks on his door, Scott answers. He tells her that Boyd isn’t in, probably because his class ran late. He lets her in, anyway, and she plops down on Boyd’s bed.

Cora likes Scott. She can see how he and Allison fit together; she doesn’t know the story of how they got together, but she assumes it was probably a meet cute situation. She does know, though, that they are both bright and sunshiney and brown-haired and very, very earnest. Both Boyd and Lydia like Scott enough to talk to him, which Cora thought was not humanly possible until Scott.

Today, though, Scott keeps looking at his phone and furrowing his eyebrows. Cora doesn’t think she’s ever seen a more concerned face, and she can’t help but ask what’s causing it.

“Stiles was right,” Scott says.

That means very little to Cora. She sort of knows Stiles; he’s around sometimes, because he and Scott are close. She hasn’t spent enough time with him, though, to understand why Stiles being right could be a bad thing. “Okay?” she says. “How awful?”

“Stiles thinks his roommate is creepy,” Scott says. “Allison said he wasn't that bad.”

Cora doesn’t understand at first how dramatic things are, and she brushes it off. “Roommate problems must be more common than I thought.” She knows saying that is a mistake. She will almost certainly get a lecture from Scott later about Lydia being a very nice, smart woman.

Right now, though, Scott has other things on his mind. Instead of explaining, he hands her his phone. It's gone to sleep, so she slides her finger across the screen to unlock it. It’s password protected, so she has to hand it back to Scott to type in the numbers. When the phone is unlocked, though, she stares at the open conversation between Scott and Stiles.

There are three pictures. The first is of an open drawer filled with polaroid pictures. The second two are zoomed in so that some of the photos are clearly visible.

Cora understands why Stiles is creeped out, now. The second photo shows stacks of pictures, most of which are of Allison. Allison going down the hall in her towel to take a shower. Allison eating lunch in the dining hall with Lydia. Allison out at the archery range, Allison sitting in class, Allison unlocking her door. Allison’s locked dorm room door.

After looking at the second picture, Cora is creeped out, but the third is what really concerns her. These stacks have more than just pictures of stuff connected with Allison, and most of them are labeled. There is a whole stack of photos labeled “friends”, which has a picture of Kira and Cora on top.

There are two stacks labeled with Cora’s room number, both of which have time stamped photos of the part of the hallway with Cora and Lydia’s room.

“Shit,” Cora says. She flips back and forth between the photos while everything sinks in. The unsettled feeling in her stomach over the third photo morphs pretty quickly to anger.

“Can you ask Stiles if I can see those?” Cora asks Scott, handing his phone back to him. “His roommate and I need to have a talk, but I want to see the photos first.”

Scott almost fumbles the phone in his haste to type out a message. “I’ll have to tell Allison about this,” he says sadly, once he’s pressed send. “She’ll be disappointed. She really wanted to believe Matt was a nice guy.”

“Allison wants to believe Lydia is nice,” Cora points out.

Stiles replies to Scott with his room number for Cora, so after giving Scott a reassuring pat, she heads up to his room.

 

* * *

 

Stiles takes two seconds to open his door once she knocks. 

“Scott showed me your roommate’s creepy drawer,” Cora says, by way of opening. “I want to burn all the photos of my room that are in there, but I also don’t want to go outside when the fire alarm goes off, so I’m just going to take them, instead.”

“Cool,” Stiles says, not at all phased by her violent reaction. “They’re over here.”

The desk drawer is still open and everything is laid out just like in Stiles’ picture, so she goes straight for the photos of her room. The two stacks are fairly tall, and as she starts flipping through them, she realizes that Stiles’ roommate has covered a lot of ground.

Some of the photos have her or Lydia or Allison in them, but more of the photos than not are photos of the empty hallway around their room.

“Matt’s obsessed with Allison,” Stiles says, jolting Cora out of her focus. She turns to look at him. “I knew he was like… way creepy, but I didn’t know we were talking stalker levels of creepy, here. He said something weird about losing his copy of Allison’s schedule, so I did just a tiny bit of investigating.”

“So, snooping,” Cora says, turning back to the photos.

“Hey, snooping implies I didn’t have a reason,” Stiles objects. “I was just being a good roommate, you know, trying to help him find his stuff that he lost. It’s not my fault I just happened to keep looking once I found it.”

“You’re terrible,” Cora says. If what he found wasn’t putting a damper on things, she’d be amused.

“You aren’t complaining,” Stiles tells her. He keeps talking, but Cora tunes him out so she can look more closely at the photos. According to the time stamps on the photos, they were taken sporadically over roughly a month. The photos taken of her and Lydia’s room seemed to be mostly taken on the weekends. The ones taken on the same day were taken every ten minutes, but would deviate from the schedule when there was a person.

Cora is seriously creeped out. There are photos of her she didn’t know were being taken, and it seems that this Matt dude had an actual, set schedule for it.

She’s distracted from that, though, when she gets to a series of photos time stamped from two weeks ago. In the photos, the hallway is empty, and then Lydia comes to the door. She unlocks it and walks in. There's nothing for another fifteen minutes.

Lydia comes back out and puts a rubber band on the door.

Cora flips through the next few photos quickly, looking for another person. She remembers that night. She was in the gym with Allison, and she didn’t get a text until she was leaving the gym. She didn’t have her phone on, so she was surprised to find the rubber band on the door. She heard noise coming from her room, so she checked her texts and moved away from her door quickly.

Cora wants to know who it was that was making that room so noisy. She sometimes sees the guys that Lydia is with, but she doesn’t as often as she does. She doesn’t remember Lydia being that noisy before, so she is perversely curious what this guy looks like.

Scanning the next few photos, Cora doesn’t see anyone outside the door until Cora herself enters the frame. She's standing outside the door in her workout clothes and scowling, with Allison frowning next to her.

“Everything okay?” Stiles asks, noting the look of confusion on Cora’s face.

Cora hands Stiles the other stack. “Without perving on Lydia, can you check to see if there are any in there from November 1st?”

He can see from her expression that it might not be smart to argue the Lydia point, so he shuts his mouth and takes the photos. While Stiles flips through and checks dates in his stack, Cora does the same with the stack she was holding.

Neither of them finds any other photos from that day.

“Maybe Matt only creeps on the ladies?” Stiles suggests.

“There are pictures of Boyd,” Cora says flatly, “and of other guys outside the room on other days, too.”

“He probably knows _so much more_ about Lydia’s sex life than I do,” Stiles whines, flipping through the stack to Lydia in her nightgown kicking out a shorter guy with lots of muscle.

Cora grabs the photo out of his hands and puts it back in the stack. “I’m taking these. You do not get to keep these to look at any more than your creepy roommate does.” Stiles opens his mouth to argue, but Cora silences him with a glare.

“No. Deal with your roommate. I’ll deal with mine.”

 

* * *

 

All the way back to her room, Cora can feel her frustration and anger building up. She still has the texts from Lydia. Lydia clearly says that she is going to be having sex. So either Lydia’s lying to her about having sex at all, or Lydia’s kicking Cora out of the room for entire nights just to get off. Either option makes Cora want to strangle Lydia. She knows how much it drives Cora crazy when she gets kicked out of her room, especially overnight. She knows how much it throws a wrench in Cora’s plans when she does shit like that announced.

Cora was being relatively understanding about it because she thought that she was staying out so Lydia could get laid, but if it was just Lydia smugly getting off knowing that Cora was pissed off on Allison and Kira’s floor…

That sounds exactly like something Lydia would do.

Cora puts way too much force into opening her door, but she doesn’t really care. She storms up to Lydia’s desk, where Lydia is perched in her special-ordered desk chair, reading a book for class. Although Cora is tempted to call Lydia out on it by shoving the photos at her, Cora doesn’t really want to explain the photos right now. She sets them on her desk to deal with later. She has enough things to be mad about already.

When Lydia turns to face her and raises an eyebrow, Cora demands, “Over the weekend two weeks ago, why did you kick me out of the room?”

“Because I was having sex,” Lydia says slowly, like Cora is a child.

Lydia’s tone only makes Cora angrier. “With yourself or someone else?”

“Does it matter?” Lydia asks, totally unfazed. She sets her book down and turns her chair so she’s facing Cora. “I told you I was having sex, and I did.”

“Having sex implies with other people,” Cora says, taking her answer as confirmation.

“Masturbation is a perfectly acceptable form of sex,” Lydia says, starting to get a bit heated now. “Don’t pretend you’re Snow White, I can smell the room when I come in from class.”

Having that thrown in her face is mortifying enough, but in this context, when Lydia is blatantly trying to avoid admitting that she did anything wrong, Cora gets angrier. She leans in closer to Lydia.

“At least I’m a decent enough person to take care of things when you _don’t want to be in the room_.” Cora’s volume is rising rapidly. “How easy would it be to get yourself off when you have the room to yourself? It doesn’t take all night, and I’m out of the room a lot. Is it really that hard for you to be considerate? Are you really that stuck up your own ass?”

Lydia gets up out of her chair so Cora isn’t looming over her. Cora doesn’t back away. “Are you worried that if I’m stuck up my ass, I can’t take care of yours for you?”

It surprises Cora enough that she reacts genuinely, without a snappy retort. Lydia’s face is very close to hers. She squirms, very aware of her body, and scrambles for something to say. Lydia doesn’t leave her that opportunity.

“You like that, don’t you?” Lydia asks. Cora is so distracted by Lydia’s mouth that she doesn’t notice Lydia moving her hand to the small of her back until she feels the press of Lydia’s fingers against the skin where her tank top rides up.

The anger that has been boiling up inside Cora is still there, but it feels further from the surface when Lydia’s hands are on her. She swallows, hard, and focuses herself enough to answer, ignoring the smug curve of Lydia’s lips. “You can try my ass, but you’ll get better results elsewhere.”

Lydia hums. “Is that permission to try?”

With Lydia so close, touching her bare skin and offering up what she’d promised, Cora’s mouth feels dry. “Yeah,” she says, “it is. We’ll see how much you learned from all of those times you were lying about fucking boys.”

Instead of responding verbally to the jab, Lydia responds in a way she knows will keep Cora quiet. She closes the short distance between them and presses her mouth against Cora’s. Cora’s surprised by how insistent and demanding the kiss is from the start, like Lydia is telling her that she won’t accept anything less than Cora’s full attention and effort. Cora pushes back, refusing to give Lydia another excuse to act superior. She can feel the sticky residue from Lydia’s deep red lipstick in the press of their lips. Lydia’s hands are cool, and when she runs them along Cora’s back to slide her tank top up, Cora’s distracted enough that her mouth parts for Lydia’s tongue.

Things spiral from there.

The kiss deepens quickly. They part, and Lydia’s tugging Cora’s shirt the rest of the way off and unhooking her bra. Cora’s frustrated by how calm and composed Lydia seems while she’s staring at Cora’s half-naked body.

Cora asks to help get Lydia’s clothes off, but Lydia only lets her take off her top. She leaves the bra and skirt. Cora decides that she can hold off on the boobs; what she really wants is to run her hands up Lydia’s thighs and under Lydia’s skirt.

Lydia has other things in mind. Before Cora has the chance to touch, there are hands dragging Cora’s jeans over her hips and down to the floor. She leaves the panties on, at least.

Now that she’s almost naked and Lydia is almost fully dressed, Cora isn’t sure what to do. Luckily, Lydia doesn’t give her long to think about it. She tugs Cora to the bed and lays her out, swinging a leg over so she’s straddling Cora’s hips. She leans over, and Cora expects them to go back to kissing, but Lydia pushes the hair away from Cora’s neck right below her ear and presses her mouth there, instead.

Cora’s startled. She isn’t even particularly sensitive there, but she wasn’t expecting it, and Lydia draws a definite reaction out of her, a low, quiet hum. Lydia considers that encouragement, and starts paying attention there in earnest. When Cora feels her biting down, it draws her back to the reality of the situation enough that she presses her hand against Lydia’s chest to stop her.

“No marks where people can see.”

Lydia pulls away so Cora can see her skeptical expression. “Are you sure about that?”

Cora hesitates. “It’s a pain to cover up.”

“But you like the marks,” Lydia says certainly. Cora doesn’t argue, though she does turn a bit pink. “No visible marks,” Lydia agrees.“I’ll leave them where only you can see them. I’ll know they're there, and you’ll be thinking about them.”

Cora struggles not to let her imagination get away from her. Lydia notices that her attention is slipping away, though, and she trails a hand down Cora’s stomach. When she gets to Cora’s panties, she doesn’t bother to take them off. She slides her hand straight under, brushing her hand gently against Cora’s clit.

She doesn’t give Cora much time to think about that, either. Now that her mouth isn’t busy with Cora’s neck, she refocuses it on Cora’s breasts. Cora has never resented how easy she is for a mouth on her breasts before, how Lydia's rough, warm, wet tongue against the soft skin and Lydia’s teeth pulling gently at the nipple is cracking her resolve. She knows that Lydia can feel with her finger how she’s making Cora wet, and she can surely hear the noises that Cora is failing to muffle.

The breast Lydia doesn’t have her mouth on is at the mercy of Lydia’s fingers, tugging and twisting and making Cora’s breath catch. She’s never had anyone be this rough with her nipples before, and she had no idea how much better it felt than nice, gentle petting. Lydia is relentless, with her finger on Cora’s clit and with her attention on Cora’s boobs, and it’s dragging out reactions that Cora didn’t even expect from her own body.

She hangs on as long as she can, trying not to embarrass herself. Lydia seems determined to make her come as quickly (or as hard) as possible, though, from the way she’s pushing herself so hard to find what makes Cora melt.

As always, Lydia gets her way. Cora knows her panties have soaked through by the time she comes. Lydia smugly pulls her hand out and rubs her fingers on Cora’s bare stomach, leaving trails of Cora’s own slick on her skin.

Cora doesn’t even have to ask what Lydia wants for herself. She slides up so she can reach into her side dresser to pull out a dental dam. She unwraps it and holds it out to Cora. “You seemed so eager to be in my space earlier, so I’ll let you eat me out.”

When Cora reaches up to unzip Lydia’s skirt, though, Lydia stops her hand. She slides the rest of the way up so that she’s positioned above Cora’s mouth.

She isn’t wearing any underwear.

Cora eats Lydia out until her jaw is sore. She’s almost glad she can’t see Lydia’s face. She knows that she’s doing well, because Lydia’s stopped giving her directions about what specifically she wants, and she can feel from the way Lydia’s thighs are clenching that she’s close. It spurs her on, though, imagining the unimpressed face that Lydia could easily be wearing.

She doesn’t understand why, but Cora needs to impress Lydia. She needs to make Lydia feel like she’s worth her time and effort and energy. She needs to prove that she's just as good at this as Lydia, that she can keep up and that Lydia should do this again with her.

Lydia’s quiet through most of it but louder when she finally comes. Cora wonders if she’s like this every time, and if that’s why their neighbors are always shooting them dirty looks. Cora takes a second to breathe. Lydia lifts herself off of Cora and the bed like nothing remarkable or out of the ordinary just happened. She puts her shirt back on and disappears with her towel to wash her hands.

It takes Cora longer to recover. She tosses the dental dam and gathers her clothes from the floor. She throws her underwear in the laundry and pulls on a fresh pair, but she doesn’t bother putting her bra back on under her shirt, which is a mistake. The entire rest of the day, when she’s working in her room, her nipples feel puffy and tender and sensitive. She can feel twinges every time the rough fabric of her shirt rubs against her breasts, reminding her of how it felt to have Lydia's fingers and mouth on her.

Cora doesn’t get much work done.

 

* * *

 

They don’t talk about it. 

It’s almost like nothing happened. Neither of them acknowledges that anything happened, which Cora finds equal parts relieving and frustrating. She doesn’t have to admit that sex with Lydia was insanely good.

However, the radio silence means that she doesn’t have any idea where things fit together. She doesn’t know if they’re going to do this again, or if it was a one-time deal. She knows that she sometimes sees Lydia staring at her when she thinks Cora isn’t paying attention. Cora recognizes the familiar, assessing look in her eyes.

She doesn’t know what it means.

She knows that Lydia still drives her absolutely crazy, and from the disapproving, pursed-lip expression Lydia wears when Cora comes in all sweaty and gross from working out, Lydia isn’t magically googly-eyed over Cora now that they’ve had sex. Cora is reassured that that hasn’t changed.

There are things that have changed, though, that Cora is trying very firmly to ignore. She finds the soiled panties when she’s packing up laundry to wash at home over Thanksgiving, and all she can think about is Lydia’s finger rubbing at her clit unforgivingly. She sees Lydia coming back into the room and undressing and she lets her eyes linger on the parts of Lydia she didn’t get to see from under Lydia’s skirt. Images of Lydia pop up more and more when she’s getting off. Lydia holding Cora down and fucking her, Lydia eating Cora out but pulling away whenever Cora gets close to coming, Lydia only touching her breasts and telling her she has to get off from that or not at all.

It’s nothing like what Cora would get off to before. There’s nothing soft or sweet in any of it, which Cora thinks fits, really. She hasn’t seen anything soft or sweet or yielding about Lydia Martin, and it makes sense that she wouldn’t change just because her clothes are off. It just turns out that Cora might be a lot more turned on by the idea of yielding as she thought. The fantasies that she spins are the only time when she can make herself care what Lydia wants from her, and in them, pleasing her mental Lydia always seems like the most important thing in the world.

So they don’t talk about it. Cora wishes they would, but she’s glad that they don’t.

 

* * *

 

Cora leaves for Thanksgiving Break as soon as humanly possible. She finishes up classes at noon on Tuesday, but all of her family is at work until evening, so when Scott and Stiles offer her a ride home that afternoon, she jumps on it. Stiles’ car is not the most expensive or glamorous car, but it isn’t a far drive, and Cora isn’t going to turn up her nose at a free ride home.

Half of the ride home is talking about plans for break, and the other half is Stiles asking lots of questions about what it’s like rooming with Lydia. Cora provides a brutally honest guide to the challenges of living with Lydia. She’s tempted to tell Stiles about having sex with Lydia, but she refrains. Scott gives her his standard, gentle reminder that Lydia has her good qualities, too, but Cora can tell Scott has no idea, either. Cora doesn’t even think Lydia told Allison, or else Allison has a very good poker face.

Cora decides that either way could really be true.

When Cora arrives at her house, she lets herself in and unpacks. She knows that she’ll only actually be home for four or five days, but she didn’t bring much stuff home, and not unpacking makes her feel temporary in her own house. It’s true, but that doesn’t mean she has to admit it.

Her parents get takeout from her favorite Thai food place to celebrate her being home (and to avoid cooking any more than they need to before Thursday rolls around). She goes to bed early and sleeps for a full twelve hours.

Wednesday, Cora watches a lot of television and ignores her work. She doesn’t keep up with TV when she’s at school, so it is nice to be able to sit around and do very little. She knows that after a few days of this, she’ll be antsy and ready to get back to work, but it’s nice for a day or two.

The entire family comes over on Thanksgiving. Derek brings his girlfriend, Braeden, and Laura comes over with her spouse and the kids. They set the kids up with their own little table and put the grown-ups at the other.

Uncle Peter makes one ill-advised comment about Cora not having anyone to bring home. Cora is grateful when her mother stands up for her and says that focusing on school is perfectly acceptable, and not as grateful when Derek comments that he was doing more sleeping around than settling down his first year of college. Braeden steers the conversation away from Derek having sex and the implication that Cora is, too. Cora likes Braeden a lot.

It’s nice to be around the family. Cora is a very family-oriented person, and as creepy as Peter can be and as hyper competent as Laura is and as ridiculous as Derek can sometimes be, it’s nice having everyone in one place. Cora feels good when she’s in a comfortable environment and when she’s surrounded by people she loves.

It’s why she’s dreading going back to school after this weekend. She has friends, sure, and she's grateful for them. She doesn’t feel like she’s friendless or that she’s without human connections. Returning to her tiny, cramped dorm room is going to be miserable, though. As much as she tries to maintain her part of the room the way she wants it, she never feels totally at ease and relaxed in her room. It doesn’t feel like home, and her hostile roommate doesn’t make matters any better. It’s fine, most of the time, but at times like this, when things feel _good_ , it reminds her just how much her living space at college lacks.

Friday, Laura drags Cora shopping. Shopping with Laura is a whirlwind; she always knows exactly what she wants and exactly where to get it at the best prices, and she moves quickly from place to place, just naturally assuming that Cora will keep up. Cora isn’t crazy about shopping, but Laura wants to get her new clothes for Christmas, and she wants Cora to be there to try things on. Laura believes firmly in sacrificing the surprise of Christmas presents for the knowledge that the clothes will fit and that Cora won’t have to turn around and return them later.

Cora tries on more new matching bra and panty sets in that day than she’s worn in her entire life, because Laura apparently thinks that Cora has too many sports bras. By the end of the day, Laura drops Cora back off at home half-asleep and sore.

Saturday and Sunday pass by in a blur of catching up on work, and before Cora knows it, she’s back on campus with a full backpack and dread in her stomach.

 

* * *

 

The stress piles on quickly. There are only two weeks left before exams, and it’s finally hitting everyone that the end of the semester is coming soon.

Cora is starting to feel the pressure, more than she has the rest of the semester. She has a constant stream of work, last-minute assignments that the professors have given them as practice and term papers and finals. Running is helping her deal with her stress some, but it can’t magically fix the fact that she has a lot of work to do in a very short period of time.

There’s another important stress reduction tool that Cora is using, though, for this part of the semester. It turns out that having sex with Lydia isn’t a one-time thing after all. It's a many-time thing; Cora isn’t sure if she doesn’t want to go out leading up to finals or if the guys she would normally sleep with don’t want to go out, but either way, Lydia isn’t bringing a single person home. She uses Cora as a source of convenient sex for the rest of the semester.

The problem (and Cora can’t believe that there is a problem with consistently good sex) is the type of sex that they’re having. It feels dramatically different from all of the sex that Cora used to have with Caitlin. Then, everything felt new to Cora, and Caitlin let her take her time and figure out what she liked and they gentled each other along. They talked everything through and Caitlin let her feel things out and Cora usually felt like she had a handle on things whenever they moved forward. She felt like she had everything under control.

Sex with Lydia is nothing like that.

With Lydia, Cora feels like she’s just along for the ride. Lydia has in her head a clear idea of what she wants, from the sex and from Cora herself, and it’s overwhelming in a way that things with Caitlin never were. Lydia is all push, and though she makes sure that Cora’s okay with everything, Cora never feels like things are under control. Or, at least, not under her control.

Lydia doesn’t baby her or coddle her; she takes exactly what she wants, and Cora is sometimes scrambling to keep up. Lydia doesn’t go for soft and gentle and easing her into new things. It feels like Lydia has something to prove, like every time is another chance for Lydia to show Cora how much she knows about Cora’s body that Cora didn’t know about it herself.

Lydia eats Cora out, sucking and licking and testing with fingers until she learns the best way to make Cora come quicker than she wants to. Lydia pushes Cora, so she can see exactly how many times she can get Cora off in a row until Cora’s so overwhelmed and wrung out that she tells Lydia to stop with tears she couldn’t hold back streaking down her cheeks. She tests her brand new vibrator on Cora, putting a condom on it and pressing it against Cora, cycling through the settings until Cora’s tensed and ready to come. She pulls it away before Cora can actually get what she’d wants, and she leaves it off just long enough for Cora to settle back down so she can start all over again.

Lydia may not make marks on Cora’s neck, but she bites, because she likes it almost as much as Cora does. She leaves marks high on Cora’s thighs, just low enough that when Cora’s workout shorts ride up, they’re clearly visible. Cora isn’t sure how she feels about them. She can’t deny the thrill that goes through her when she sees them, big and dark on her thighs, a reminder of the way it felt when Lydia left the marks, the twinge mixed with arousal and something deeper. Lydia likes to tell Cora that when they’re having sex, it’s her job to take care of Cora’s body and to give it what it needs. She reminds Cora, sometimes, when she’s struggling, that she doesn’t expect perfection, but that when Cora is hers, she wants her to obey as well as she can.

That idea always sticks in Cora’s throat and in her gut, the idea that, for that little bit of time, she’s Lydia’s to play with and to treat however she wants. It isn’t her decision, what they do. Lydia made sure she knew she can always veto, and she can always stop things if she’s uncomfortable or unsure, but she never has, because Lydia does a very good job of making those decisions. It’s a mental and emotional release for Cora, because all she has to worry about is feeling good and doing what Lydia tells her to. Sex is the only time when she would bend over backwards to make Lydia happy, to make Lydia want her enough to keep treating her and her body like they belong to Lydia.

The marks remind her of that. The idea that, for a little bit of time, at least, there is a body and a mouth and fingers and a beautiful, demanding girl who takes some of the weight off her shoulders and keeps her tethered to the ground. Lydia wants Cora to be hers, for that time, to obey and to let Lydia take care of, to de-stress and to feel owned and like there’s someone who can be in charge so Cora doesn’t have to. Later, when she’s thinking about it, it bothers her a little bit that that person is Lydia. But Lydia is so firm and genuinely good at it that Cora knows she wouldn’t be getting this from many other people, especially not this well. It feels like something that she needs right now, this little break from responsibility.

Cora doesn’t waste time thinking about what this might mean during finals period. She has other things to be worrying about. But both she and Lydia ease off with the hating each other so that finals period can pass by in a blur of exams and tests and staying up just a little bit too late.

A stressed-out senior with a lot of bulk and not many brains knocks on the door and tries to declare his undying love for Lydia. Cora plans to shut the door in the face, but Lydia gets there first. Cora has to admit it is more than a little bit satisfying.

They don’t exchange Christmas presents, and when Lydia leaves a day before Cora, she tells her to have a good break, but that’s it. When Cora leaves for home, she's excited. She now has a whole month of break without Lydia Martin in her room.

 

* * *

 

Christmas passes in a blur of food and dodging drunk Uncle Peter to hang out with his daughter Malia. Cora comes out of it with lots of new clothes and a new iPod, which Derek tells her is to replace the very old piece of crap she currently has, but also to “block out the assholes you’re always complaining about bothering you when you run”.

The best and worst part about break is that Cora has no work. This is incredible because she actually has time to sleep a lot and watch a lot of bad television and babysit Laura’s kids. She has time to visit with her friends, especially Caitlin, who is in town for break.

It is bad because she also has time to think.

Seeing Caitlin actually doesn’t help with avoiding thinking about school or about Lydia. Cora goes over to her house, and they cuddle up with snacks. It’s been a long time since Cora has seen Caitlin, and she’s glad to have her close again. It’s different now that they’re broken up, but she can always rely on Caitlin for a hug and an honest opinion. She realizes quickly that, this time, honest might not be what she wants.

Caitlin tells Cora all about college on the East Coast. She tells her about her classes and about her friends and about how horrible the winters are there. Cora relaxes under the blanket with Caitlin; she could fall asleep in Caitlin’s arms just listening to her talk. She sounds happy at school, and when she mentions there might be a girl there that she likes, Cora is deeply relieved to discover that she feels excited for Caitlin instead of jealous.

That’s when the conversation turns to Lydia.

“How's your girl?” Caitlin asks Cora, running a hand through Cora’s hair.

“It’s cheating using the hair thing to calm me into talking,” Cora tells her, but she can’t muster up the energy to actually get upset about it.

“You didn’t deny that she’s your girl, though, did you?”

“You were distracting me,” Cora protests. “She isn’t my girl. She is the furthest thing from my girl. She would probably object to you even calling her a _girl_.”

“Are you still stuck at staring wistfully when she gets out of the shower?” Caitlin persists. “You know, you could actually do something about it.” Cora is quiet just a beat too long, and Caitlin catches it. “You have done something about it,” she says, shifting so she can see all of Cora’s face. Cora tries to cover it, but Caitlin pulls her arms away. “Oh my god,” Caitlin says. “You are _terrible_ , how could you not tell me that? Are you dating?”

“No way,” Cora says immediately and emphatically. “There’s no way in hell. We drive each other crazy. Plus, I don’t think Lydia would ever let her guard down enough to let anyone see that she has feelings. I can’t picture her dating anyone.”

“She could probably say the same thing about you, you know. You aren’t exactly the most talkative, and from the outside, it looks like you only have emotions about 10% of the time. That doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of being a sap when you do,” Caitlin says. “You aren’t always sunshine and daisies, but you have your moments. I’ve seen it. I know.”

“I’m not saying she’s a robot,” Cora says, “She has to have little shreds of human-y softness in there somewhere. I’ve just been rooming with her for…” she does the quick math in her head. “Almost two months now, and it’s never come out once. It doesn’t make sense that she's always on her guard. I’m not going to eat her.”

There’s a moment when Cora thinks that Caitlin is going to have a serious response to that, but she realizes that she's wrong as soon as Caitlin’s eyes light up. “Yes you are,” Caitlin says, light and sing-songy.

Cora sighs, but she doesn’t bother to get upset. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I’m right, though, aren’t I?” Caitlin asks. “You may not be dating, but you’re definitely having sex.”

“We’re having sex,” Cora agrees, resigned. “But you aren’t getting any of the specifics. No talking about sex, that was the deal when we broke up.”

“The deal was no talking about _us_ having sex,” Caitlin corrects. “I want to hear alllll about you and Lydia.” She pauses. “Does she take good care of you? She’d better not treat you like one of those guys she sleeps with and tosses out.”

Cora sometimes settles into a complicated feeling where she both hates Caitlin and misses her desperately at once. “The sex is good,” she relents. “Different from with us. Very different. But that’s partly because Lydia and I aren’t doing anything even resembling dating. The sex is all we’re doing, and there aren’t many feelings involved.”

“Not many? That implies that there are some.”

“There are none,” Cora says flatly, and most definitely a little bit too quickly. “None at all. From either end.”

“Are you sure about that?” Caitlin asks mildly.

“Yes,” Cora says firmly. “I am positive. There are no feelings, just lots of sex.”

“So there’s been _lots_ of sex?”

Cora shrugs. “I mean, I’d say it’s a lot. We’ve crammed a lot into the last two weeks.”

“I’m going to pass up the very obvious joke about cramming things in,” Caitlin says, “and focus on the fact that you know as well as I do that sex comes with feelings for you.”

“It does not,” Cora insists. “Things are different with Lydia and me. We dated, and the sex helped things along. Lydia and I aren’t going to ever be dating.”

“You don’t know that,” Caitlin tells her, wrapping her arms around Cora again. “Things may be different with us than with you and Lydia, but that doesn’t mean that you are an entirely different person. Sex brings you closer to people. Touching brings you closer to people. Just because it isn’t soft and mushy sex doesn’t mean it isn’t affecting you.”

“I can have casual sex,” Cora says. She’s starting to get a little bit offended. “I’m not some little girl who falls in love every time someone puts their hands on me. I’m realistic. I know that Lydia doesn’t care about me except for that we have good sex. I know that as soon as we aren’t rooming together anymore, she’ll drop me and find another girl. I’m just tiding her over, and she’s not going to get feelings for me besides annoyance and dislike.”

Caitlin squeezes her closer. “You said she doesn’t show her feelings about you, but annoyance and dislike aren’t nothing. She feels something for you, which does mean something. Lydia is still pretending she doesn’t know Stiles’ name, isn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Cora admits grudgingly. “She says she doesn’t need to learn his name because she won’t need to use it. She doesn’t care about a lot of people.”

“She knows who you are,” Caitlin says. “You always rant about her, and you don’t like admitting she gets to you. But you seem to get to her, too, enough that you know you drive her crazy. That means she’s not indifferent.”

“She definitely doesn’t have _positive_ feelings for me, and I don’t have any for her.”

Caitlin shrugs. “From the way you’re talking now, I don’t think you hate her as much as you used to. I think that you don’t think it’s ridiculous. I think you’re just afraid of putting yourself out there for someone like Lydia.”

“What does _that_ mean?” Cora asks skeptically.

“Someone who isn’t afraid to be harsh. Someone who isn’t afraid to be brutally honest about how they feel.”

“So you think that I have feelings for Lydia and I'm afraid to tell her?” Cora asks. “Do you realize you sound like a bad movie psychologist?”

Caitlin grins sheepishly. “Just think about it, okay? Don’t ignore me just because you’re afraid of having feelings, or because you’re afraid Lydia won’t.”

Because she is a good friend, Caitlin lets Cora change the subject. Cora’s afraid that the damage is already done, though. She doesn’t believe that Caitlin is right for a single second; the idea of her having feelings other than dislike for Lydia is ridiculous, and just Caitlin trying to make sure that Cora is all matched up now that she has her own crush.

The seed is planted in Cora’s head, though, now, and she finds herself worried that Caitlin is right. That forces her to think about the things she’s been avoiding when it comes to Lydia. She knows, deep down, that Lydia can’t be bad through and through because of the way she is with Allison. She knows, deep down, that Lydia understands her much better than most of the people at that school, and that not even Boyd and Allison do a better job of taking Cora out of a tense, frazzled, frustrated, finals-induced headspace and relaxing her mind and her body. She knows deep down that, aside from school, Lydia doesn’t do a single thing she doesn’t want to, and that that includes her. She knows that she wants Lydia, too, and that comparing things doesn’t feel fair, but that if she put everything down on paper, she would have to admit that sex with Lydia is the best sex she’s had in her entire life.

She knows that sex with Lydia has made her hate Lydia less, because it’s a time when Lydia being overbearing and bossy and demanding doesn’t feel like a bad thing. She knows that when they’re done with something particularly intense, Lydia will stay with her for just a bit to make sure she’s okay and safe. She always leaves, and she always comes back acting like nothing has happened between them, but that short span of time where Lydia is with Cora means something big to her. Cora has always had a soft spot for people who look out for her and help her take care of herself, and Lydia definitely fits that bill.

Caitlin gets an angry text from Cora for it, because now Cora is left with a brain full of thoughts and three weeks left until Christmas break is over.

As much as Cora eyes the call button when she scrolls past Lydia’s number, she holds off. Cora isn’t going to take Caitlin too seriously and go try to call her roommate that she barely talks to when they are in the same room together.

But, now, Cora's thinking, and that always leads to trouble.

 

* * *

 

New Year’s is a lot of fun.

Usually, Cora spends it with her family. Derek usually gets a little bit tipsy and affectionate. Laura’s kids usually refuse to sit still until about ten, when they crash. Malia usually tries to sneak some of the champagne and gets caught, because subtlety is not her strong point.

For the first time, Cora actually has plans for New Year’s that her parents have approved. Allison’s parents are out of town for some gun expo thing, and her aunt told her she was allowed to have some friends over. Allison says that it should be a small group, just their close college friends in the area and a few friends from high school. Scott and Stiles agree to pick Cora up; Stiles is driving over, but the plan is to just go ahead and stay the night at Allison’s so that they can stay up late and drink without having to worry about getting home. Cora thinks that Scott probably also wants to stay so he can sleep in Allison’s room with her.

Allison’s house is nice and in a pretty neighborhood. There are a few cars parked outside, and when Cora walks in, she sees that the group is relatively small, after all. Allison and Lydia both have chairs to themselves in the living room, but the other five or six people there (which Cora can’t help but notice are almost exclusively guys) are spread out on the couch and on the floor.

Allison introduces Cora to everyone and offers them drinks. Cora doesn’t remember a single name. Scott and Stiles both take something with alcohol, but Cora grabs water from the kitchen sink. She doesn’t often drink, especially around people she hasn’t met before. They sit around and talk for a little bit. Cora mostly listens. Every once in a while she’ll get a polite question or two, but it’s mostly a closed group of friends catching up. A lot of it is small talk that Cora doesn’t really have the context for; they talk a lot about high school, and since Cora’s parents sent her to the private school in the area, she doesn’t know most of the same people. It’s only 8:30, and Cora is starting to get nervous that it is going to be a long, awkward night for her.

There’s a lull in the conversation while people go to refill drinks and grab snacks. Stiles settles down next to Cora with a cup way too full of whiskey for his tiny little body. Cora is relieved when Scott plops down next to him with a cup and steals half of it. “Scottie and I realized you don’t know anyone here,” Stiles starts out, “and that you’re pretty awful with the whole socializing thing, which means a lot coming from us. Your face has to be able to do things other than unimpressed and bored.”

“I _am_ bored,” Cora says.

“We can introduce you to people,” Scott says, eager to help.

“Or,” Stiles offers, gesturing with his plastic cup, “we can give you the rundown on everyone who matters here.”

Stiles waits until Scott finishes his gentle chastisement about how everyone matters before he gets into it. It turns out that Stiles has very strong opinions about everyone there. Scott points out a curly-haired guy named Isaac, and after a long sip of whiskey, Stiles declares firmly that he is obnoxious and wears too many scarves, which apparently makes him insufferable. He rambles about a blonde girl named Erica who apparently is “badass and hot and totally used to have a crush on me, she called me Batman”. Stiles goes on for a while about Danny, and so much of it is overwhelmingly positive that Cora starts to wonder if Stiles came out of high school with more than one lasting crush.

“The only flaw that Danny has is his best friend,” Stiles tells Cora seriously. “Jackson Whittemore is the biggest douchebag in the entire town.”

“That’s a big statement,” Cora says mildly. “Which one is he?”

Stiles points out a slim, tanned guy with bright blue eyes and ridiculous cheekbones. He’s wearing a stark white v-neck t-shirt, and from the loose smile on his face, he has had at least a few drinks already. He swings an arm around Lydia’s waist, and although she rolls her eyes, it seems fond instead of genuinely annoyed or indifferent.

“He is a very pretty guy,” Cora says, trying to ignore the sour feeling in her stomach at the sight of Lydia so comfortable with someone else.

“He’s Lydia’s ex.” Stiles stresses the word ex with pride, like it is some kind of personal triumph. “He was captain of the lacrosse team and drove a Porsche and thought that made him better than everyone. They were together from freshman year to the end of sophomore year. They were terrible for each other. All they did was fight, and she was only with him for his reputation.”

“That’s not fair,” Scott says disapprovingly.

Cora knows that Scott tends to give people the benefit of the doubt, but she also knows that Stiles has a reason to dislike Jackson, because he was Lydia’s ex. It would be easiest to just accept what Stiles says, with the feeling in her gut from looking at the two of them together, but Cora decides that she should be more generous than Stiles. “What is he _actually_ like?” she asks Scott. She ignores Stiles’ protests.

“He is a bit of a jerk sometimes,” Scott admits, “but he isn’t always so bad. He’s pretty smart, and he and Lydia get each other. Neither of them is always nice, but neither of them is a bad person. They did fight a lot, and the breakup was ugly, but Allison says that they loved each other a lot, and she knew them better than me. They’re friends now that they aren’t actually in school together.”

Cora considers that for a long moment. “Just friends?” she double-checks.

Scott gives her a quizzical look. “Pretty sure. They definitely aren’t dating, and he’s at Duke now, playing lacrosse.”

“I haven’t noticed any Skype sex,” Cora contributes, “but I did get kicked out a lot of times, and it turns out that not all of them were for her to have sex with guys that were there.”

“They aren’t together,” Stiles cuts in. “He’s single on Facebook.”

“And Facebook knows everything,” Scott teases.

The rest of the night, Cora keeps an eye on the two of them. They definitely do spend a lot of the night together, and there's a lot of casual touching. Cora suspects part of that is that Jackson is very clearly drunk, though Cora hasn’t seen Lydia touch alcohol since she arrived. Once Cora gets a bit more comfortable, things go more smoothly with Allison’s high school friends. There is still some lingering awkwardness, but Cora and Danny get along decently well, and Cora doesn’t have to interact at all with Jackson.

Midnight comes quicker than she expects. Allison turns the TV on so they can watch the time-delayed ball drop in Times Square. Cora sits down on the couch. She expects to fade into the background and give people hugs afterwards. She sees Jackson moving towards Lydia out of the corner of her eye. She’s surprised when Lydia raises an eyebrow at him, shakes her head, and says something that Cora can’t catch. Lydia walks over and settles in next to her while Jackson makes baffled faces at both of them.

When the countdown from 10 starts, Lydia puts a hand up to Cora’s face and turns it gently towards her. Cora doesn’t have time to think about how gross her breath probably is and how little sense it makes before the TV is announcing that it’s a new year and Lydia is kissing her.

Cora kisses back. She doesn’t realize how long their kiss has stretched on until there’s a polite cough in the background. Cora pulls away and opens her eyes to see the entire room staring at her and Lydia.

She turns bright red.

Lydia seems unfazed, leaving Cora to squirm while she acts totally unaffected. Cora is off-kilter from all of this. It’s the first time that she and Lydia have kissed without it leading to sex, and it’s the first time that anyone has actually seen her do anything with Lydia other than bicker. The way they kiss is practiced, by now, and although it isn’t obvious how much they've done together, Cora thinks it is pretty clear that this isn’t the first time they’ve kissed. This isn’t the way Cora hoped that people would find out.

Stiles looks like he’s just been stabbed. Scott and Allison both look significantly less surprised. Allison tries to turn everyone’s attention to Auld Lang Syne being played on TV, but Cora can feel the weight of people staring at her, still. Later on, she knows she’s going to have some explaining to do.

 

* * *

 

Allison, Scott, and Stiles all get the cliff notes version that night. Not a single one of them buys the idea that things are less than feelsy on Cora’s part. Stiles won’t talk to her.  She keeps having to talk about it, between the other two and Caitlin, and it makes ignoring the butterflies she got in her stomach when Lydia kissed her that much more difficult.

 

* * *

 

By the time Christmas break ends, Cora is rested and ready to go back to school. Christmas break has always felt just a little bit too long to her; if it were a little shorter, she wouldn't go back to school feeling unmotivated and out of her usual schedule. 

Cora is happy with her grades from her first semester. She worked hard, and her report card from the first semester shows that. She even pulled off a B in philosophy, to her astonishment. She resolves never to take a philosophy course again, even if it means that she probably will not share many (or any) courses with Boyd in the future.

Lydia hasn’t said anything to Cora since the kiss on New Year’s, which Cora feels like she should be used to but still finds incredibly unnerving and unsettling. Cora knows that Lydia wouldn’t have done it if she didn’t have a plan or a reason, but Cora can’t figure out what that could be. She doesn’t know why Lydia would want other people to know about them. The fact that Lydia was totally in favor of leaving bite marks on Cora’s neck reminds her that maybe Lydia wasn’t the one who has been emphasizing secrecy, after all.

When Cora moves back into the dorms, most of Lydia’s stuff is there, but she isn’t. Lydia doesn’t come back that night, either, so Cora figures that she’s sleeping with someone. She struggles with reminding herself that that is a good thing, because Lydia having sex somewhere else is better than her having sex in the room and kicking Cora out for it.

 

* * *

 

School comes back in session, and Lydia only has sex with Cora. Cora figures that it just isn’t far enough into the semester for Lydia to find guys to sleep with, but in her gut, she hopes she’s wrong. She doesn’t know what she thinks the better alternative would be, but it doesn’t stop her from feeling like it’s significant that Lydia has just stuck with her. 

It’s the second weekend after coming back that Kira and Allison start talking about going to a club.

There is one right by the college campus that Cora has heard about, but never been to. It's popular with the students, since the minimum age requirement to get in is only 17 and they don’t card nearly as much as they should, legally. The entrance fee is only $4, and it’s open until 2 AM.

Clubs aren’t really Cora’s scene. She can dance, but it’s a bit awkward and clunky by herself. Caitlin has dragged her out a few times, and Cora learned that she definitely does much better with other people. She would still take running on the elliptical over going out dancing any day.

Allison, in particular, seems determined to get both Cora and Lydia out. She gets Lydia to agree to it, but doesn’t tell Cora that until after she and Kira wheedle Cora into saying she will go. As much as she protests, come Friday night, Cora finds herself in her desk chair, dressed in a cute but very short red dress, with Lydia doing the finishing touches on her eye makeup. She draws the line at the high heels that Lydia tries to cram her feet in. She grabs her black flats and lets Lydia kill her feet in six-inch heels if she wants to.

Cora heads over to Allison and Kira’s room while Lydia gets herself ready. Lydia knocks on the door in a mini-skirt and a crop top and heels that Cora would break something in if she tried to go clubbing in them.

The skin between Lydia’s shirt and skirt is very distracting, and Lydia’s heels make her legs and ass look incredible. Cora isn’t thinking about putting her mouth all over them, leaving marks like Lydia does with her. She definitely isn’t thinking about the fact that if she kissed Lydia with Lydia wearing those heels, either Lydia would have to bend or she would have to be on her tiptoes.

The club is a ten-minute walk away, but Lydia refuses to actually walk. She pays for a cab for the four of them, so they are squished, but at least not walking in the dark.

They wait in the line outside the club for about ten minutes before they get in the door. They pay their entrance fee, and Lydia, who looks the oldest and has a high-quality fake, goes to get drinks. Allison tells them that Lydia has never actually ever needed her fake to use for herself, in practice, because she doesn’t actually drink. That doesn’t surprise Cora. She didn’t notice Lydia drinking on New Year’s, and Lydia definitely didn’t taste like alcohol.

Cora doesn’t usually drink, either, but when Lydia comes back to the table, she hands Cora a vodka coke. Cora considers turning it down, or passing it off to Allison. Lydia has a knowing look in her eye, though, and when Cora thinks about the fact that she’s going to be expected to dance, she decides maybe tonight is a good night for drinking, after all. She thanks Lydia and takes a small sip.

They finish their drinks and have another round. Cora drinks slowly, because she doesn’t drink often enough to know how quickly the alcohol is going to set in, and she doesn’t have much concept of how it will affect her. She can feel herself loosening up a little bit. She doesn’t _think_ she’s drunk yet, but the alcohol relaxing her enough that when Kira grabs her hand and tells her that it’s time to dance, she doesn’t feel nervous or uncomfortable enough to try and duck out.

All four of them dance with each other for a while. It's still relatively early in the night, and the music isn’t fantastic, but Cora is having a surprising amount of fun. She has decided that Lydia is incapable of dancing badly, which is entirely unfair, but the other two are not taking it very seriously, which (combined with the alcohol) makes it easier for Cora to come out of her shell. Allison and Kira are both very encouraging. Cora thinks she might not have the best tolerance, after all, if she’s two drinks in and already getting fond and fuzzy feelings for both of them.

After an hour and a half or so of dancing, they take a short break and squeeze around a small table by the bar. Lydia offers to get more drinks, and Allison sends Cora along with her to help her carry them. Cora doesn’t understand why Lydia could do it by herself earlier and not now, but Allison gives her an Archery Range look, and Cora gets up to help her.

The area around the bar is crowded and loud. After five minutes of waiting and listening to Lydia work outthe order for the others (she thinks a gin and tonic for Allison, a water for Kira, and a needlessly fancy cocktail that Cora’s never heard of for herself), they are near the front. Cora doesn’t know what she likes well enough to pick what she wants, and after glancing through the options on the wall, she decides maybe consulting Lydia is the better idea, after all. When she turns to ask, though, Lydia is talking to a broad-shouldered, slightly older man. He whispers something in her ear, and Lydia says something that makes him look at Cora and nod.

Cora can’t hear any of the conversation, but she knows that the man rattles off their entire order, plus two shots of tequila. Cora figures one shot is for the guy and the other is for Lydia, and that she’ll be taking the order back to the table alone. She’s surprised when Lydia gives her a salt shaker, a wedge of lime, and one of the shots.

She’s even more surprised when Lydia takes the other shot for herself.

They move off to the side of the bar with their drinks and the guy, so they aren’t getting in the way of the other people swarming around it. Lydia leans close so Cora can hear her, which means that she’s practically whispering in Cora’s ear. “You’ve never had a tequila shot before, have you?”

Cora shakes her head.

“Lick your hand, put some salt on it, lick the salt off, take the shot, and then bite the lime,” Lydia tells her.

“Hand, salt, shot, lime?” Cora confirms, and Lydia smiles at her. Cora licks her hand, and Lydia shakes salt onto it before efficiently taking care of her own hand.They clink shot glasses, and Cora lifts her hand to lick it. She's thrown off and flustered when Lydia gently brings Cora’s hand to her own mouth and takes a long, slow lick at the salty area below where Cora’s thumb and index finger meet.

Cora didn’t know it was an area of her body where she's sensitive, but apparently, with some alcohol running through her, it is. Cora’s so baffled that she forgets about the shot in her hand, and the strange look the guy behind Lydia is wearing tells Cora that he is just as confused as Cora is.

“Well?” Lydia asks, holding out her hand. “The others will be waiting for their drinks. Hurry up.”

Cora flushes as she quickly licks the salt off Lydia’s hand and downs the shot. It tastes relatively unpleasant, and she is glad to have the lime to get the taste out of her mouth. Lydia seems satisfied, and once they’ve set the shot glasses down at the bar, she takes one drink, hands Cora another, and gives the other two to the guy to carry back to the table. Cora can see Lydia watching the drinks like a hawk the entire time the guy is holding them, which reassures her a bit. When the drinks are at the table, Lydia leans in and says something to Allison before heading out onto the dance floor with the guy.

“I thought you said she didn’t drink,” Cora says to Allison once she’s settled into her chair.

“She doesn’t.”

“She definitely did today,” Cora says, getting flushed thinking about Lydia’s mouth on her hand all over again.

“Maybe she’s drinking because you are,” Allison suggests.

“I think it’s because of the guy,” Cora hypothesizes. Allison seems skeptical, but she glances at Lydia and the guy dancing. Lydia’s already pulling close to him.

“She _does_ like older guys,” Allison says hesitantly. “She thinks they’re more mature.”

“I’m getting kicked out of my room tonight, aren’t I?” Cora asks. She sounds resigned, but the idea upsets her more than she thought it would. Allison’s sympathetic look doesn’t help much.

“It’s like she doesn’t even care,” Cora says. “She never acts like she cares, and I don’t think you could be friends with her if she doesn’t care about _someone_ , but it definitely isn’t me.” Allison looks like she has something to say, but Cora doesn’t want to drag down the mood on what is supposed to be a fun night out. She sighs. “Let’s go dance more,” she says, and Allison finishes up the rest of her drink quickly so they can go.

They avoid the part of the room Lydia's in, but the longer they dance and the more Cora’s body starts to run on autopilot, the more she finds herself searching through the crowd for Lydia. It takes a while to find her, but when she does, she sees that Lydia looks almost bored. Cora thinks the boy has his hands on Lydia’s ass, and he looks like he’s paying Lydia’s neck a lot of attention, but she doesn’t even look a bit affected.

Cora knows that Lydia’s neck is definitely not that sensitive, but, clearly, either the guy doesn’t know or he doesn’t care. Either way, it’s more than a little bit satisfying watching him fail.

Lydia’s head turns to give the guy more space to work, and Cora and Lydia’s eyes meet. Cora’s dancing is looser and easier, now. She’s drunk enough that she doesn’t care if she’s embarrassing herself, but she’s still sober enough that she hasn’t gotten too clumsy and unbalanced.

Lydia’s eyes rake over Cora, and Cora feels warm at the small smirk that she gets. She’s seen enough of Lydia’s facial expressions to know that smirk is a much better sign than the complete disinterest that was there a few minutes ago.

The song changes, and Cora refocuses her attention on Allison and Kira. She tries not to glance back at Lydia, but every few minutes, she can’t help it.

Allison goes to the bathroom, and there’s a boy that has caught Kira’s interest. Cora doesn’t really want to dance alone, so she glances back to check on the status with Lydia and the boy, but Lydia is gone. Cora is surprised when Lydia reappears next to her, and even more surprised when she starts dancing with her.

Things escalate quickly. Lydia is close and warm. She pulls Cora’s hands around her bare waist, and she slips a leg between Cora’s. The added height from Lydia’s heels means that Lydia’s knee is very close to brushing Cora’s underwear.

“I should give you some new bite marks,” Lydia says mildly. “If you were a little bit more sober, and club bathrooms were more hygienic, I’d drag you to the bathroom and do it here.”

Cora wants that so, so badly. The image of Lydia rucking the dress up around Cora’s waist and leaving bright, red marks all along Cora’s thighs, in spots that would usually be covered but are left wide open and visible now, gives her shivers. Allison and Kira would know exactly where the marks came from. Everyone would know, and for once, that doesn’t bother Cora even a little bit.

Lydia must be able to see the longing in Cora’s face, because she leans in and kisses Cora instead. “Sober up a bit more, and I’ll do it at home.”

They dance for a while and text the other two that they’re going home early. Lydia doesn’t offer an excuse.

 

* * *

 

Cora and Lydia sit in the back of the cab. Lydia’s leg keeps brushing Cora’s, and Cora isn’t sure if it’s intentional or just the fact that the cab ride is bumpy and Lydia is wearing high heels. For the first minute or two, the only sound in the cab is the muted techno music that the driver has on. Lydia is staring out the window when she finally breaks the relative silence.

"It's cute when guys our age think I'm going to keep them around."

"Why don't you?" Cora asks. She's unsure where this is coming from, exactly; the guy from tonight was at least out of college, probably even older, and Lydia has had very few boys over to their room since she started having sex with Cora. There hasn’t been a boy at all since the beginning of exam season.

Lydia shrugs, but she doesn’t turn her head to face Cora. "I don't keep anyone around who isn't worth it."

Cora doesn’t know what to make of that, and the car goes quiet again.

 

* * *

 

The sex is different tonight.

The things that they actually do aren't abnormal, for them. Lydia marks up Cora’s thighs. Lydia fucks Cora with her strap-on. Cora comes multiple times.

This time, though, it feels entirely different. Lydia is gentler than usual, both with her movements and with her words. Everything feels warmer and heavier, like what they’re doing has actual weight and significance. Even after the sex, Lydia doesn’t rush off to make herself presentable afterward. She lies with Cora for a while, not quite cuddling, but also not ignoring her. She doesn’t kick Cora out of her bed. She doesn’t even complain about Cora’s come getting on the sheets.

When Cora wakes up in the morning, it isn’t to an alarm, and it isn’t in her own bed. She isn’t wearing any clothes, so she can feel very well that the sheets are way too slippery to be hers. There's a person in bed with her

She catalogues her body. Her thighs are rubbing uncomfortably against the blanket’s fabric. Her muscles ache, especially in her core. She could gulp down a bottle of water easily, but she doesn’t have a headache at all. She’s sore between her legs, but there’s no trace of leftover come on her thighs. She definitely needs to shower; she can feel the gross heaviness of dried sweat on her skin.

The night before filters back in, and she slowly eases her eyes open. Lydia is still asleep next to her, her hair going everywhere and her face smushed into the pillow. She has most of the bottom covers, but she’s let Cora hog the top one. Cora can’t help the creeping warmth and fondness.

She’s trying hard not to let last night change anything. She tries to remind herself of all the things that always pissed her off about Lydia. She thinks about how Lydia acts like she knows best about everything all the time. Lydia thinks she knows how to decorate Cora’s part of the room best, Lydia thinks she knows best what Cora likes, Lydia thinks that her views on everything are the most right…

None of it is enough to kill the feelings that have bubbled up too close to the surface for her to ignore, and that scares her a lot, especially because she is still fairly certain that Lydia does not share any of the feelings she can’t get rid of.

It's much easier for her to ignore Lydia’s softness than it is to ignore the effect that that softness has on her. It's much easier to think of Lydia’s behavior as unchanged, since Lydia is, on the whole, really not that different. She still seems fairly dismissive when Cora has something to say that doesn’t align with her own views. She still gives Cora more disapproving looks than Cora knows what to do with.

So Cora decides it’s just her that feels like something is different.

 

* * *

 

Cora can’t help but think about how close Valentine’s Day is coming.

In high school, it only ever mattered to her when she was dating Caitlin, because they would always make sure to do something that day that landed them somewhere private. Not dating anyone this year means that she technically doesn’t have to do anything that day, but she thinks it might be fun to, anyway. Some superhero movie that Kira is really excited about is due to be released just before Valentine’s Day, and she invited Cora to go with her, so they can get off campus and watch explosions and hot people in tight clothing and eat lots of buttery popcorn. It seems like a legitimate option, and Cora seriously considers taking her up on it.

The closer she gets to Valentine’s Day, though, the more she starts to think. Allison has been talking about her plans with Scott since they came up with them. Boyd is having a ‘study date’ with a blonde girl with long, curly hair named Erica from his English class. Cora knows they’ve met for coffee and studying a few times already, and Boyd is quiet and fond when he talks about her. Cora doesn’t know Lydia’s plans until a week and a half before Valentine’s Day. There are a ton of parties going on here on campus, and as they get closer, Cora assumes Lydia will go to one of them. She overhears Lydia talking on the phone, though, saying she's just going to stay in.

That makes Cora rethink her plans for that night.

She can’t stop thinking about the fact that Lydia is going to be in the room all night. She had been so certain that Lydia was going to make other plans, but now that Cora’s heard that she isn’t, her head is swirling with possibilities. It scares her how tinged with feelings some of them are. She doesn’t really know how she and Lydia fit together anymore, since it feels like more than hate sex but definitely less than a relationship, still. There isn’t room for any sort of grand, romantic gesture, she doesn’t think, but that leaves a wide range of options open.

Cora confirms with Lydia that she isn’t going out, and then she tells Kira she might not go with her and Stiles for movie night, after all.

 

* * *

 

That morning, Cora deviates from her normal schedule. Instead of working out, she takes the time for herself and sleeps in a little bit. She goes to class and gets back while Lydia is gone. That’s when she goes for her workout. She cuts her run short so she can take her time in the shower. She actually follows all the instructions on the conditioner and lets it sit, for once. She spends time meticulously shaving the hair off her legs and underarms and doing border control.

She puts on clean clothes and tosses her workout clothes in the laundry bag. She has a bit of time to kill before she agreed to meet Allison in her room so they could get her ready for her date, so she does her homework. 

After she’s killed enough time, she grabs some toiletries, her makeup bag, and some clothes and shoves them into her backpack. She eats a quick dinner in the dining hall, brushes her teeth, and heads over to Allison’s room. She sits on the bed next to Kira and offers reassurance that the dress that Allison picked is the cutest, and she helps Allison put her necklace on.

They send Allison off with a hug, and then Kira turns to Cora.

“Right. You get dressed, and then I’ll help you with makeup.”

Cora strips down to her underwear and takes the time to moisturize her skin. She puts on a new pair of red, lace panties and a matching bra that Laura had given her for Christmas, and she borrows red nail polish from Kira to paint her fingernails and toenails. She gets her eyebrows under control, like Lydia has been fussing at her for three days to do, and she lets Kira make her up. Kira has her show her from a distance how she looks, and after a second, she goes to her dresser and returns with a pair of knee socks, which she hands solemnly to Cora. When Cora puts them on, Kira looks her over again and beams, sending her over to the mirror.

When Cora looks at herself, she can feel a blush coming on. She isn’t very tall, but the soft red socks go all the way up over her knee, making her legs look longer and drawing attention to her thighs. The red lace of the bra and panties make her skin look soft and white. Her dark hair shines in the light, falling straight down her back. Kira’s makeup job makes her lips look almost as red as her lingerie, and her eyes look huge and bright. Her cheeks are flushed.

It’s the first time Cora has ever looked in the mirror and actively thought of herself as gorgeous enough to be with Lydia.

Kira hands her a robe to cover up walking back to her room, and Cora slips it on and ties the waist. She gives her a hug and a huge, encouraging smile.

Cora heads down the hall to her room, full of excitement and nerves. She walks up to her door.

Everything comes crashing down when Cora sees a rubber band on the door handle, and when she hears a low, muffled voice through the thin walls. The confidence she had been feeling and the excitement that she had about the idea of spreading herself out on the bed, of letting Lydia walk in to see her all laid and gorgeous for her, are crushed. She stands in the hallway in her robe, her feet pressing against the cold laminate floor, her heart in her throat.

She’s disappointed and angry, partly with Lydia, but mostly with herself. She should've known better than to assume that Lydia being in meant that Lydia would be available. She should have known better than to think Lydia would spend the night alone when she could have anyone she wanted.

She should’ve known better than to think for one second that Lydia would want Cora, tonight.

Cora turns around and walks back to Kira’s room, her eyes burning. She feels insignificant and small; earlier in the semester, Cora would have just been upset that Lydia didn’t warn her that she was being kicked out, but now, all Cora can feel is regret. She feels foolish and naïve and stupid and irrationally hurt. She knows she has no excuse; Lydia never promised anything, and they aren’t anything to each other.

But she let herself get her hopes up.

She knocks on Kira’s door, and Kira opens up. Cora doesn’t look long at Kira’s confused face before she pushes into the room. She waits until the door closes and she strips her clothes off, not caring that Kira is probably staring at her, worried. She digs out her clothes from earlier and puts them on. She doesn’t meet Kira's eyes, because as soon as she does, she knows she runs the risk of starting to cry.

“Here are your socks,” Cora says, forcing her voice steady as she holds them out to Kira. “Do you have makeup remover I can use?”

Kira gets wipes from her desk drawer and hands them to Cora. “Do you want to me to stay here with you for a bit? We can’t stay the night, Allison and Scott will be in here. But I can cancel on Stiles for the movie.”

“You really wanted to see the movie,” Cora says, shoving the lingerie into her backpack. “You should go. Just have Allison text me when she wants me out. I’ll hang out here until Lydia lets me back in, or until I get the text, and then I’ll relocate to Boyd’s. If Scott won’t be there…”

After a second of staring at Cora, Kira walks over and takes the makeup removing wipes from her. She sets them on the desk, takes one, and slowly but meticulously wipes the makeup from Cora’s face. It takes two wipes, and when she’s done, Kira wraps Cora in a huge hug. “I want to see the movie, but you come first. Stiles and I can go this weekend. He can wait.”

“She was with someone else,” Cora tells Kira quietly. “I didn’t know. She didn’t tell me. But there was a voice with her that I didn’t recognize, and…” She takes a deep breath, trying to choke back tears. “I’ve never felt so stupid in my life.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

Cora laughs hollowly. “I could’ve. I should’ve. I’m not. I’m just… I’m a blip on Lydia’s radar. I’d forgotten, because she hasn’t been having sex with anyone else lately. It made me think I was special, that she wanted me. Like maybe her having sex with me more than once meant that she cared about me. That was stupid. I was so stupid, Kira.”

Kira holds her. “You weren’t stupid. Having feelings for someone is never stupid.”

Cora doesn’t have the energy to argue with her.

 

* * *

 

After lots of reassurance, Kira goes to the movies.

Cora sends Lydia a very flat, very short text telling her to let her know when she can get back into the room. She would just go straight to Boyd’s, but she really needs to grab her computer and its charger from her room. It’s starting to get late, and Cora is worried that Lydia’s guest will be there all night, and that Cora will get kicked out of Allison and Kira’s before she can grab her laptop. 

Around 8:15, she gets a text from Lydia saying the room is clear.

Cora packs everything into her backpack and grabs the overnight bag that she usually keeps at Allison’s. She glances at her face in the mirror to make sure it isn’t obvious she was crying and she heads back to her room.

Lydia’s only wearing panties when she answers the door, and the anger that had been inwardly directed changes its focus.

“You didn’t tell me you were going to be using the room,” Cora says flatly.

“I didn’t plan on it,” Lydia tells her. “Something came up.”

“You should’ve told me,” Cora says, getting visibly upset. “What if I had plans? What if I had needed the room?”

“You never need the room,” Lydia says slowly, like she thinks Cora needs the extra time to understand her statement. 

“What if I had tonight?”

“You only sleep with me,” Lydia says dismissively, “and since I was occupied...”

Anger and frustration boil up in Cora. “Maybe I had plans for you. Maybe you should have considered someone other than yourself for once in your fucking life.”

Lydia remains calm. “What kind of plans did you have for me?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Cora says, grabbing her computer and shoving it into her backpack. “You were busy with someone else.”

“We talked about the fact that I would probably keep sleeping with other people, Cora,” Lydia says. “You agreed to that.”

Her calmness is too much for Cora. She turns to face Lydia and she snaps, her computer charger in hand. “Yeah, but I didn’t realize that I’d get _feelings_ for you, okay? I expect nothing from you, there, because you have your fucking ridiculous standards for keeping people around, and I don’t meet them. But I like you, and it sucks.”

Lydia raises an eyebrow, but otherwise, her face is unreadable. “I don’t see how that’s my problem.”

Cora’s gut clenches. That’s all the confirmation she needs. She doesn’t look at Lydia, and she doesn’t say a word back to her. She tosses her charger in her backpack, zips it up, slings it on, and heads out of the room.

She knows Lydia is right, but hearing it thrown back in her face makes it sting.

 

* * *

 

Cora runs.

As soon as she’s outside, she’s running. It’s chilly out, and the breeze is blowing, but she doesn’t even notice. She feels slow and clumsy wearing jeans and having both a bag and a backpack. The few people that are out are giving her the strangest looks, but she doesn’t care. She needs to be moving. She needs the push of her muscles and the ability to focus so much on her body that it blocks out the thoughts and feelings that she wants to avoid. She wants to run until she’s left too exhausted to care about how hurt she is. 

She’s out there for almost an hour, running around the campus until her sports bra and shirt are soaked with sweat and her legs are uncomfortable and sore from rubbing against her jeans. She sits down on a bench next to a light post and pulls her phone out of her pocket. 

Cora calls Boyd.

She’s hugely relieved that he is back in his room. He picks up on the first ring and tells her she’s welcome to stay with him as long as she wants.

When she shows up at his door, he gives her the biggest hug.

 

* * *

 

Cora spends the night there and gets approval from Boyd to stay longer. She has her notebooks for her morning classes with her, and once she knows Lydia will be out of the room and in class, she sneaks in quickly to grab the rest of her school stuff.

Boyd leaves the door unlocked so she can go in and out without a key. Scott doesn’t seem very surprised to see her there, when she goes back to their room, which Cora assumes means that Boyd explained the bare basics. Cora's glad that Scott can see from her face that she doesn’t want to talk about it. Cora thinks if she starts talking about it, she’ll get emotional and upset again, and she doesn’t want to let herself start with that.

By the second night of staying with Boyd, Cora still hasn’t heard from Lydia. She thinks that should probably surprise her, but it doesn’t. It’s probably Lydia’s way of confirming that she doesn’t care whether Cora’s there. Lydia’s probably taking advantage. There’s probably a rubber band on the door right now.

The third night, Allison pops in, and although she claims it's to visit Scott, Cora knows it's really to try and figure out what is going on with her. She tells her that if she wants to know what happened she should ask Lydia. She says it’s embarrassing and stupid. Allison doesn’t accept that for an answer, because Kira told her about their Valentine’s Day plans. Cora says that she’s tired and doesn’t want to talk about it, and changes the subject until Allison finally gives up and lets them talk about something else.

Laura’s daughter, Emma, has a dance recital that weekend, and though Cora had been hesitant before about leaving campus for it, she could not be more eager to go home right now. She tells Laura when to pick her up from school sort of last-minute, so she makes sure she lets Boyd know where she’s going before she heads off.

 

* * *

 

Being at home is exactly what she needed. Everything is busy and hectic, with the little ones around. It’s hard to be sad with Laura’s kids running everywhere, and they help keep Cora’s mind off things. Friday night, they watch Disney movies until it’s time for the kids to go home, and Saturday is the day of the recital. Emma is definitely her mother’s daughter; she is every bit the perfectionist her mom is, and although her little arms are stubby and a little bit flaily, she’s the most on-rhythm of the group.

Allison texts to ask Cora where she is. Cora tells her she’s at home and turns her phone off for the weekend.

That night, they all go back to Cora’s house for dinner – Emma decides she wants pizza, so they pick some up on the way home. They sit down to eat as a family, and then, after, Cora goes back to her room to get some work done. She’s halfway through her neuro essay when there’s a loud bang on her door.

“Cora!” her niece says, running up to her. “Merida’s at the door for you!”

“Who?” Cora asks, utterly baffled.

“Merida!” Emma says, getting even more excited. “Her dress isn’t green, though, and she doesn’t talk the same. But she said she wanted to talk to you! Do you think you’re gonna go on an adventure?”

Cora thinks that she’s just playing pretend, but she figures she’ll see what the kid is talking about, anyway. She stands up from her desk. “I don’t know. Let’s go see what she wants.” Laura’s daughter tugs her down the stairs, but when they get to the front hallway, Cora freezes. Lydia is standing there in her winter jacket and a short, blue dress, her hair messy and windswept.

“See, I told you it was Merida! She won’t show me her bow and arrow, though.”

Cora isn’t sure if she wants to laugh or cry. “Why don’t you go play with Mommy,” Cora says, “and I’ll talk to Merida, okay?” Emma seems very skeptical, but after Cora promises to play spies with her later on, she agrees and skips off.

“What are you doing here?” Cora asks flatly.

“Allison said you weren’t replying to her texts. She was worried,” Lydia responds. “Stiles gave me your address.”

Cora ignores the warmth in her gut at the fact that Lydia must’ve actually used Stiles’ name to get the address from him. “If Allison is worried, then why are you here? Allison is perfectly capable of coming here herself.”

“She insisted that I should come.”

“Right,” Cora says flatly. “Then I’m here, I’m safe, and you can leave. Tell her to look me up in the phone book, next time, instead of having you show up unannounced at my house.” Cora turns around to go back to her room, but Lydia doesn’t seem to be leaving.

“You can come back to the room, you know.”

That only makes Cora angrier. “Oh, come on. Don’t act like this isn’t exactly what you want. You get to have all the sex you want while I’m not there, completely guilt-free. No pretending that you care that you’re kicking me out without advanced warning or anything.”

“It was Valentine’s Day, did you honestly expect me to be sitting in my room twiddling my thumbs?”

“You could’ve warned me,” Cora says flatly. “That’s in the roommate agreement. You warn me before you spring something like that.”

“Neither of us has been following the roommate agreement for months. I’ve never stormed out and avoided you for days because of a roommate agreement violation.”

“Well, I did,” Cora says brusquely, “and I don’t plan on coming back anytime soon.”

Lydia’s gaze softens. “You didn’t, though. You admitted to that before you left.”

“No. We aren’t talking about that,” Cora insists. “You don’t get to talk about that.”

“Because you’re afraid?” Lydia asks.

Cora snorts. “No, because it doesn’t matter. If you don’t want me in the room, I’ll stay out of the room. You can decorate it however you want and make it smell like sunshine and daisies when you aren’t having sex, which you’ll have just as much of, because you didn’t care whether I had to be in the room before, anyway.”

“I had just as much sex with you in the room as I did with you not there,” Lydia starts, but Cora cuts her off before she can finish.

“And it all meant just as much to you. Because we were just sex, too.”

Lydia falls quiet.

“Right,” Cora says, taking that as agreement. “I think you need to go now.”

“It doesn’t mean the same thing.”

“I think you need to go now,” Cora repeats.

Lydia stays still. “I had repeat sex with you. I let you sleep in my bed.”

“How generous of you,” Cora says sarcastically.

“I want you to come back,” Lydia tells her. “I’m not ever going to promise I'll stop having sex. But just because I’m having sex with other people doesn’t mean that all the sex I’m having is equally important to me.”

“Clearly whoever that guy was was more important than me, then,” Cora says, knowing she’s being unfair but deciding that she doesn’t care.

“Cora,” Lydia says, gently. Cora thinks it’s the softest she’s ever seen Lydia look, and it makes her a little bit uncomfortable. “I thought you were going to the movies with Kira, or I would’ve planned on being with you that night.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Then don’t,” Lydia says. “But I care about you, too, and if it takes me admitting that out loud for you to come back to the room, then I will.”

“I don’t _care about_ you,” Cora says. She doesn’t like the seed of hope in her stomach, and she doesn’t like the fact that she wants to believe Lydia is being honest. Cora thinks Lydia wouldn’t want to say any of this if it weren’t true. “I _care about_ Allison and Kira.”

“The sex with you is good,” Lydia starts, and Cora snorts again.

“It is, but if you really want me to come back so badly, that’s not enough,” she says. Cora realizes, now, that she has the upper hand in this situation, for once, and she’s going to milk it for all it’s worth. Lydia tries to stare her down, but that doesn't intimidate Cora one little bit. Cora has so much going on in her head, but the fact that Lydia seems so morally opposed to saying that she likes Cora makes Cora start to actually believe that it might be true.

“Fine,” Lydia huffs. “I like you. Will you come back now?”

“Do I get to gloat about it?” Cora asks her.

“Will I be able to stop you from gloating about it?

“No,” Cora tells her honestly. “It will drive you crazy. Stiles will be green.”

Lydia smiles a bit. “Of course he will.”

 

* * *

 

Cora packs her things up and tells her family that she’s going to go ahead home with her roommate that night, instead. Laura knows a bit about Cora’s old roommate problems, so she thinks it's surprising until she gets a good look at Lydia. She sees the way Cora rolls her eyes and fusses right back when Lydia tries to nag Cora about her packing habits, and then Laura’s all wry smiles. 

Derek isn't as subtle. He slips her a condom. Cora knows she’ll get a lot of questions from her parents, later.

The car ride home is relatively quiet. Lydia doesn’t put music on, and Cora wants to fill the silence, but she doesn’t. She has more questions than answers, after their conversation. She knows that she believes that Lydia likes her, but it doesn’t entirely make sense. Part of it is just that it hasn’t quite sunk in, but the other part of it is that it just genuinely does not make sense that Lydia liked her throughout all of this and never gave it away at all.

She wants to ask Lydia to explain it, but tonight has been too much of a good thing for her to want to deal with the typical Lydia attitude of acting like it was obvious, and that Cora had to be blind not to see it. Cora doesn’t know what any of this means. She does know, though, that Lydia likes her enough to put in the effort to come and get her and tell her.

That has to count for something.

 

* * *

 

“Wait, that’s it?” Caitlin asks. 

“I mean, we haven’t talked about whether it actually means anything,” Cora tells her. “At this point we are just at mutual liking.”

“Still, though,” Caitlin says. “I’ve been waiting on this for half a year, and all it takes is a few days of you not being in your room?”

Cora shrugs. “Guess so.”

“I’m not sure whether I should be excited or annoyed.”

“You and me both,” Cora responds.

 

* * *

 

For once, Cora doesn’t let it sit very long. She doesn’t know where things are going with them, but she isn’t afraid. The worst that Lydia could do is say that she doesn’t actually want to do anything with Cora, and Cora thinks that seems unrealistic. At least, she hopes it is 

She gives it a few days to air out and sink in before she plops down on Lydia’s bed to get her attention. She isn’t surprised when Lydia turns and wrinkles her nose, but Cora explains before she gets the chance to demand to know what Cora is doing.

“I think we should talk about what to do about having feelings for each other.” It’s clunky and unsubtle, but Cora thinks it gets the point across just fine.

Lydia actually turns around her swivel chair to face Cora. “It means that you like me and that I like you,” she says.

Instead of getting annoyed with her, Cora tries to be patient. “What do we do about it?”

“I’m not giving up having options,” Lydia says bluntly.

Cora’s stomach clenches. She should’ve expected that, but it hits her right in the gut, anyway. She wants to bolt. “Right. I’ll just.”

Lydia stops Cora. “If you can deal with that and date, we can date,” she says more gently. “I like you enough to date you, Cora.”

“So by having options, you mean that we’d be dating, but you could sleep with whoever you wanted. Basically.”

“If you wanted,” Lydia agrees. “It would be an open relationship. I would be having sex sometimes with other people, but you could, too, if you wanted to. It would be a relationship.”

Cora isn’t reassured. “I just… don’t think I understand.”

“You cuddle with Boyd, right?” Lydia asks. She’s wearing the expression she wears when she’s breaking things down into simple terms when she’s going over math with Allison or Scott, just barely passing for patient.

“Yeah,” Cora says slowly.

“That’s something that feels good for you physically, right?”

“Yeah,” Cora repeats.

“It doesn’t mean you have romantic feelings for Boyd, does it?” Lydia asks.

Cora looks flatly at Lydia. “Cuddling and sex are not the same thing _at all_.”

“You cuddle with the same person, while I don’t have repeat sex,” Lydia says. “But I get the same thing from it. I don’t need romantic feelings for sex, and having sex doesn’t mean having feelings. It just feels good.”

“But you’ll be getting sex from me,” Cora says. “Why do you need other people to make you feel good, too?”

“Cora, you can’t do everything I want,” Lydia tells her. “Sometimes I want things you don’t like. Some things your subby little body just can’t or won’t do. There are other people who can and will, and doing it with them means I can save just what you want for you.”

Cora still feels unsure. “So you’re saying that there are things I can’t give you that you want to have sex with other people to get.”

“I’m saying there are physical things that I get from other people, but, emotionally, I only get them from you.”

That’s what finally starts to set Cora at ease. “I think I can handle that. I might need you to remind me of that sometimes, but as long as it’s just you and me when it comes to feelings…”

“That shouldn’t change,” Lydia confirms.

“Then if we set the rule that they aren’t allowed in here anymore, especially with no notice, that’s what I want.”

Lydia doesn’t seem entirely happy about that amendment, but she agrees.

Cora texts Caitlin that she has a new girlfriend, and her phone doesn’t stop buzzing for the rest of the night.

 

* * *

 

Cora feels happy with the way things go, after that. There definitely aren’t huge, dramatic changes, but she feels different around Lydia. She suspects that it’s partly Lydia herself; in little steps, she’s becoming softer and more willing to actually talk to Cora about important things, instead of being terse and demanding all of the time. The sex feels more like it’s about both of them, and they start talking about it more. 

Cora lets Lydia leave marks on her neck.

Things are definitely not the same as when Cora was dating Caitlin, but she starts to feel like things are actually sliding into something that feels good for her.

 

* * *

 

No one warns Cora that Lydia’s birthday is approaching. 

She doesn’t catch on until a few days before, when Allison and Scott are talking at dinner about finalizing plans. They’re running over a short list of names when Scott glances up at Cora. “You’re coming, right?”

“Coming where?” Cora asks.

“Out with us for Lydia’s birthday. It’s a school night, so we’re just grabbing dinner and doing presents; it won’t be like some of the parties she threw back in high school.”

“When is it?” she asks, embarrassed.

Allison and Scott share a look. “It’s Tuesday,” Allison tells her. “We thought you knew.”

“She doesn’t have it on her Facebook,” Cora responds. “No one said anything.”

“She emailed out her wish list a month ago,” Scott says uncomfortably.

“Which was when we were fighting,” Cora says.

Scott and Allison share another look.

“Can you just forward the list along to me?” Cora asks. “I’m probably expected to do something, since we’re dating now.”

“I’ll do that now,” Allison says, pulling up the email on her phone. “There should be a few things you can get at the last minute on there.” 

 

* * *

 

Later on, Cora pulls the list up to look at it. There's nothing she can get at the last minute on it. Almost every link on the list goes to online sellers to purchase items that don’t exactly fit easily in Cora’s budget, especially with such short notice. Cora would have to go for more expensive shipping to get it there on time.

Discouraged, Cora knocks on Allison and Kira’s door. Kira lets her in and has her sit down to explain the situation.

“Why do you have to get her something from the list?” Kira asks. “Can’t you do something else?”

“She’d turn her nose up at something homemade, and I don’t want to give her something she doesn’t actually want,” Cora says.

Kira ponders that. “And you’re sure you have to give her something?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

It’s quiet for a moment as they think. Kira fidgets, and Cora almost wants to reach out and stop her hand from toying with the elastic band on her socks.

“Oh,” Cora says staring at the socks. She has the edges of an idea creeping into her head, one that makes her just as nervous as not having a present at all.

“Did you come up with something?” Kira asks hopefully.

“Yeah,” Cora says. “I think I did.”

 

* * *

 

On Lydia’s birthday, they go out to dinner. It’s a bit fancier than Cora would choose, but she gets dressed up and doesn’t complain. They get dessert and pay the bill, each of them contributing a few extra bucks to cover the cost of Lydia’s. 

The others give Lydia their presents and try to cover for Cora when she doesn’t have anything to hand Lydia. It’s pretty transparent that they're up to something, but Lydia seems to have enough faith in them having a reason for behaving so oddly that she doesn’t question it.

Allison comes up with an excuse for Lydia to go to her room for a while afterward (Cora thinks it has something to do with accessorizing with the dress Allison gave her), and Kira slips out to meet Cora in her room. Cora quickly strips, only bothering to be careful with the dress and put it back on its hanger because it’s Kira’s.

She feels herself getting nervous all over again when she pulls on lingerie. After the way last time crashed and burned, she decides that she would prefer to wear a different pair than the last time, even though Lydia never saw the first attempt. She picks a light pink push-up bra with a dark pink bow. The shade of the bow matches her rose-colored satin panties with garters that Cora clips to sheer, soft pink thigh-high stockings that Laura slipped into her bag. Cora lets Kira do her makeup and muss up her hair and take a picture.

When Kira steps back to get a good angle, she smiles at Cora. “She’s going to love it,” she says encouragingly.

“At least there won’t be any boys in the room this time,” Cora says weakly.

Kira gives her a warm, reassuring hug. “You both know where you are now. I think she’s going to love the surprise.  I think you two are going to be just fine.”

They get a warning text from Allison that she’s losing Lydia’s attention, so Kira should leave. Kira gives Cora one last bit of reassurance before she gathers up her stuff and heads out, leaving Cora sitting dolled up and alone in her desk chair.

She moves to Lydia’s bed, putting herself smack dab in the middle on top of the sheets. She pulls out the part of the present that Kira didn’t know about; two soft scarves that match the darker pink as closely as she could find for a last-minute shopping trip with Laura. She sets them on the bed next to her, clearly displayed on the blue duvet.

When Lydia comes in, she lets her eyes linger, drinking in the sight of Cora spread out on the bed for her. She takes her time putting her presents away and storing her heels before making her way over to Cora.

Cora’s cheeks almost match the color of her panties as Lydia traces her fingers along Cora’s side. “Happy Birthday,” Cora says quietly. The warm smile on Lydia’s face and the gentle press of Lydia’s hands soothe Cora’s nerves.The hot breath on Cora’s ear when Lydia whispers how good and thoughtful she is relaxes her to the core.

The marks around her wrists and on the exposed skin of her thighs the next morning let her know that Kira was right, after all.

They aren’t perfect. They’ll never be like Scott and Allison, gooey and sweet for each other even after three years. They’ll never be perfectly-shaped puzzle pieces snapping into place, or two halves of a whole. They both have rough edges, and they’ll never run out of things to bicker about.

But, at the end of the day, Cora knows in her bones that she’s never been as happy or as fulfilled as she is with Lydia, and that’s all she needs.


End file.
